Generalities of Distinction: Leadership, Learning, Limitations 9781475822403, 9781475822410, 9781475822427

Table of contents :
Contents
Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Generalities of Distinction
Leadership
Ethical Decision-Making
The Fight for the Public Comprehensive School System
Equity and Equality
Accountability
The Achievement Gap
Data Streams
Teacher Evaluation
Special Education
Politics
Recommendations
Conclusion
Appendix
About the Author

Citation preview

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Generalities of Distinction

Generalities of Distinction Leadership, Learning, Limitations

James H. VanSciver

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26–34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB, United Kingdom Copyright © 2015 by James H. VanSciver All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available ISBN 978-1-4758-2240-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4758-2241-0 (paperback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-4758-2242-7 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to the memory of my high school guidance counselor, Richard Doney, who saw in me what others did not and, as a result, created my career and thus changed my life, and all of those dedicated and hardworking educators in our schools, the students who take advantage of the world’s best educational system, and the devoted and supportive parents who back both their children and their children’s educators. “From those to whom much has been given, much is expected.” (Bible, King James Version)

Contents

Forewordix Prefacexv Introductionxix  1 Generalities of Distinction: How We Look at Students

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 2 Leadership: The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards

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 3 Ethical Decision-Making: Moral Ecology

51

 4 The Fight for the Public Comprehensive School System

61

 5 Equity and Equality: Public Education’s Purpose

69

 6 Accountability

75

 7 The Achievement Gap

107

 8 Data Streams

125

 9 Teacher Evaluation

135

10 Special Education

157

11 Politics

169

12 Recommendations

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Conclusion197 Appendix201 About the Author

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Foreword

Over twenty-five years ago, my husband thought he had an idea for a text about education, exploring the perceptions of what was supposed to be and comparing them to what was. He wanted the work to be both informative and inspirational, while adding a touch of levity to the writings. He felt that, in public education, we take ourselves too seriously, we tend to scoff at any semblance of fun, and those who attempt to “liven it up a bit” are often “put back in their places” with a raised eyebrow. His thinking, while impacted by over four decades of experience, has remained much the same. He felt he had better put the finishing touches on this effort before he was unable to do so. So, it is time to “release the hounds.” The thinking on these pages is impacted by a lifetime of living and over forty-three years of an exciting and entertaining career laboring for our future between the walls of our public schools. In addition, he has given serious thought and thanks to others who have made their mark on his mind. Dr. Augustus Napier, in his book The Family Crucible, a text dealing with the intense experience of family therapy, writes about how he and his associate, Dr. Carl Whitaker, have come to understand that, while they are attempting to support families in their “systems,” the therapists must also understand their own and unique “systems.” “Carl and I have offered to represent the family’s need for contact with an ‘outside’ social system, and we ourselves are a social system, too,” he said. “Before that, though, we are separate individuals, with our own professional and personal histories, our own families, and our own separate views of the world. All this separate experience is part of what we bring to the family.” For Jim, this is a crucial point. As he sees public education as his “extended family,” he must first understand himself in order to understand the lens through which he perceives that family. Also, those who chose to read this ix

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work must have a sense of his background and experience in order to consider why he holds the views he does. Dr. Morris Massey worked as Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing at the University of Colorado at Boulder during the late 1960s and into the 1970s. Jim was particularly taken by work he completed which dealt with values, especially his video program, “What You Are Is Where You Were When.” Massey described three major periods during which one’s values are developed. During the Imprint Period, up to age seven, people are like sponges absorbing everything around them unconditionally. The Modeling Period extends, he said, from age eight through thirteen, and is when we copy others. Rather than through blind acceptance, we test values and experiences, to see how they feel. During the Socialization Period, between ages thirteen and twenty-one, we are largely influenced by our peers. We often turn to people who seem more like us. However, the impact of the media, social networks, and the like cannot be discounted. The Imprint Period, Massey explained, is so powerful because that is when our values foundation is pretty much locked in. What we see as good and bad, important and unimportant, and so forth, can be tracked back to this age. That is why, he pointed out, it is so important to take extreme care in what is happening to children as they pass through this period. In addition, he reported, if you want to track cohorts of people to determine why they view the world as they do, if you look back to what was happening in the world during their Imprint Period time, when they were value imprinting, their views and perceptions are fairly predictable. A disclaimer, he adds, is to remember that when this is done, there will always be exceptions. However, most people pretty much fall in line with this model. An example he gives is why those who survived the Great Depression were so obsessed with putting money away for that proverbial Rainy Day. As we progress through life, he adds, we pretty much stick to those values. The only way we may be shocked out of that pattern is to experience what he identified as a Significant Emotional Event, as Massey called it, “a brush with death, getting fired from a job, some experience that forces us to consider that our view of the world is not correct and that we have to reconsider how we view life.” As Jim considered the words he has placed on the following pages of this text, he looked back on his life to consider how he passed through each of these three periods, to remember what was happening in the world as well as the experiences he had during those years. He knows they influenced his thinking. As the reader, you must also know that. These are Jim’s thoughts, borne out of his whole life experience. To consider if they are right or they are wrong is not the heart of the matter. That

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debate might not ever be completed. However, to agree that they are Jim’s perceptions is acceptable. They come from his personal and professional experiences. They are his generalities of distinction. Let’s take a minute to consider what has impacted his thinking of “the way things are.” Jim grew up poor, very poor. His father graduated from high school with a general education (that was one of the tracks in the late 1930s), and soon afterwards served in World War II. His mother dropped out of high school and trained to be an airplane spotter at the beginning of World War II. His family, two brothers and a sister and Jim, grew up in a small houseboat that was “planted” in the marsh next to a creek. It was not built well and, during the winter, it was not unusual to find snow blown into the corners of the bedrooms. Pipes routinely froze during the winter. They lived on low land, and it was not uncommon to have to walk through ankle-deep water down the lane after a bus discharged them after school. They were rescued out the back window of the “house” during a major hurricane in 1962, a storm that pushed the tides to eight feet above normal. The flood destroyed everything they owned, including the two rickety cars his parents owned and everything in the “house.” The insurance company proclaimed the storm an “Act of God” and did not pay a cent. Jim still marvels at how his father was able to regroup, sustain them as a family, and “weather this storm.” They struggled to make ends meet. His father worked for a local dairy while he and his siblings worked on a farm, tending to a farmer’s chickens and picking up the corn that harvesters left in the fall to sell for a small amount by the pound. They were also watermen and lived off of what was left that they couldn’t sell. They did not have access to food stamps, welfare, or any other government support. To put it simply, the reality was that if they didn’t work, they didn’t eat. And, there were times when that was the case. Despite these harsh conditions, his father did not once complain; Jim never heard him utter an unkind word, and he treated everyone equally and fairly. It did not matter the color of their skin, their station in life, or their background. He was, is, and always will be the nicest person Jim has ever known in his life. Jim’s parents sent them to school in pretty much the same clothes for days at a time, garments that were passed down from one sibling to the next until they were more than “thread bare.” His parents did not know much about school and abdicated the decision-making to the school people. They trusted the educators to a fault. Early in life, the children understood that, “The teacher is always right. I better not hear of you not listening and doing what you are told.” In an instance where a transgression was noted, they were immediately told to, “Go into the woods and get a switch.” Punishment was swift and effective.

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Some notable events that took place during Jim’s early years, happenings that surely impacted how he feels about the world, included, but were not limited to: hearing of the first rocket into space; seeing President John Kennedy elected, serve in the White House, and then be assassinated; seeing Martin Luther King’s speech in Washington and learning that he had been assassinated; seeing Bobby Kennedy run for the presidency, only to be assassinated; and watching as drug use exploded across our culture. Jim watched President Richard Nixon resign from office and shrugged as he was later pardoned. Jim attended a military college during the early 1970s and prepared to go to Vietnam, only to have it begin to close down during his junior year. Still, the memories of all who fought and how they were treated upon their return “home” brings tears to his eyes. Too many died. During his earliest years, there was no television; families really did gather around the radio to listen to their entertainment. All telephones had cords, and families had the discomfort of having to use “party lines” on which several different households had the same number. One had to pick up the telephone, ask his neighbor to get off the line, and hope that same neighbor was not listening to his private conversation. Letters did not have zip codes. People did not have access to the wealth of technology that exists today. In fact, some argue that today’s cars have more technology than did our first lunar landing. Jim was also shaped by the “British Invasion” of pop stars and the beginning of the music of Motown. Perhaps the most profound development that occurred during his formative years was an evolution in our culture that turned from blind obedience to authority to questioning just about everything. Rather than respecting positional leadership, people began to reject it. Jim has attempted to interpret the impact that his life’s journey has had on his thinking. His attempts at introspection, he hopes, have introduced a sense of balance and objectivity into his perceptions. Remember that oft-quoted great New York Yankee catcher Yogi Berra? He was once to have said, “You can observe a lot just by watching.” How true that is. For over four decades Jim has observed, listened, and participated in a great American experience . . . public education. As he has gathered an untold number and variety of experiences during that time; he has also found time to reflect on what he has learned. This book is his way of unloading his mind of all of that; it is his interpretation of those forty-plus years and what they have meant to him and what he feels they have meant to public education. In fact, his thinking about this predates his actual employment, going back to when he was in elementary, junior (we didn’t call it middle school in those days), and high school. For educators reading this text, think of how your feelings about the

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educational experience as a student in a school compare to those after you logged a year or two as a teacher. For administrators, think of how your feelings about the education experience as a teacher in a school compare to those after you logged a year or two as an administrator; for district office administrators, think of how your feelings about the education experience as a school administrator compare to those after you logged a year or two as a district office administrator. For parents, think of how your feelings about the education experience as a parent compare to those after you logged a year or two as a school board member. Those feelings are different; we gain a different perspective; the actual experience persists but our perception of it is much different. It has been both easy and challenging for Jim to complete this book. The ease of the memories oozing from his mind made putting the words on paper or in the computer easy. The challenge was how they would be written. He has felt the pressure of the politically correct community, to try to steer away from anything controversial. He found that to be an impossible task because of the very nature of public schooling. His writing was not done with the intent to harm anyone, but to consider sometimes another perspective of “the way things are.” Again, as these writings are through his mind, there are those who will take umbrage with his thinking. That’s okay. Please keep in mind that these are his thoughts and there are other ways of looking at a situation, of dissecting a matter. They are his generalities of distinction. In the words of James Finn Garner, who penned Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, “If, through omission or commission, I have inadvertently displayed any sexist, racist, culturalist, nationalist, regionalist, ageist, lookist, ableist, sizeist, speciesist, intellectualist, socioeconomicist, ethnocentrist, phallocentrist, heteropatriarchalist, or any other type of bias as yet unnamed, I apologize and encourage your suggestions for rectification. In the quest to develop meaningful literature that is totally free from bias and purged from the influences of its flawed cultural past, I doubtless have made some mistakes.” Jim also wants readers to have some fun with this. He has attempted to inject a little humor in different places to take a bit of the edge off some of the information. His intent was neither to make this a comedy nor distract the reader for his original purpose; it was just to have the reader enjoy the book. I had another way of looking at it. “You are writing a book that nobody will read,” I deadpanned. He hopes I am wrong. By the way, having fun is a notion that, he feels, is nearly lost in public education. From laughter in classrooms, to humor at faculty meetings, to a bit of amusement during board of education meetings, his sense is that educators

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have become so stoic as to make the whole business of public education nearly sterile and nearly without any hope of revival. Where to begin? How about the Starfish Story? Actually, this is an adaptation from Loren Eisely’s The Star Thrower, but the message is powerful and a fitting beginning of this text. “A young man is walking along the ocean and sees a beach on which thousands and thousands of starfish have washed ashore. Further along he sees an old man, walking slowly and stooping often, picking up one starfish after another and tossing each one gently into the ocean. ‘Why are you throwing starfish into the ocean?’ he asks. “‘Because the sun is up and the tide is going out and, if I don’t throw them further in, they will die.’ “‘But, old man, don’t you realize there are miles and miles of beach and starfish all along it! You can’t possibly save them all; you can’t even save one-tenth of them. In fact, even if you work all day, your efforts won’t make any difference at all.’ “The old man listened calmly and then bent down to pick up another starfish and threw it into the sea. ‘It made a difference to that one.’” Isn’t that the cause in public education, to make a difference in the life of just one student? And, if the plans, their implementation, and their evaluation are done well, won’t educators make a difference in the lives of many more students than they can imagine? Futurist Joel Barker teaches about the starfish story and weaves it through a discussion of vision and action. Says he, “Vision without action is only a dream; action without vision merely passes time; vision and action can change the future.” Or, as the Dalai Lama said at the Parliamentary Earth Summit in 1992, “Every individual has a responsibility to help guide our global family in the right direction. Good wishes are not sufficient; we must become activity engaged.” That is Jim’s hope with the reader, to compel the individual turning the pages to look at a situation perhaps through different eyes, to thoughtfully consider a different way, and to take action. That will be a truly transformational behavior for our public schools. And, as a result, more than one student will be the better for it. —Paula Marie VanSciver

Preface

What is a generality? What is a distinction? These two terms provide the theme for this text and guide the reader toward important questions that need responses. In terms of its use in the context of this writing, a generality is a bit of vagueness, a simplification (perhaps an oversimplification), a sweeping statement, an inadequate assertion. Its opposite, its antonym, is detail. Can generalities be stereotypes? Can they create prejudices? In the context of this book, while these three terms are not synonyms, they are very similar and play off each other. What about the word distinction? It means a distinguishing quality or mark, a special recognition, a difference, a peculiarity. Indeed, its opposite, its antonym, is similarity. It would seem, even to the most casual reader, that using these two terms conjunctively, would be oxymoronic. They are opposites and using them together would seem to cancel out their individual meanings. Yet, in the practice of public schooling, in the analysis of data regarding the results of public education, in the decision-making process designed to improve the experiences of millions of students attending America’s public schools, generalities are repeatedly referenced. Sometimes they are entire grade levels; often they are distinct ethnic groups; sometimes they are ephemeral collections of students, here today and gone tomorrow. There is always danger in applying the qualities of a single group to every single member of that group. It’s similar to “one-size-fits-all” in shoes or in seats on an airplane. People know, intuitively, that that doesn’t work. Still it is done in public education. The distinction portion of the discussion relates in several ways. First, there exist distinctive members of any generalized group. No researcher would xv

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dispute that. Some analysts go so far as to label these exceptions anomalies, outliers with respect to the presented data. The question is what scale is used to determine where the line separates those who “fall in line with the group from those who do not”? In terms of making decisions, the cohort’s criteria are generalized to all of its members. Another challenge facing decision-makers is attempting to apply generalized causes to the combined generalized behavior of all the members of that group. This is a “fool’s errand.” Finally, attempting to alter the behavior of the members of a generalized cohort with a generalized intervention that does not acknowledge each of the group members’ uniqueness is destined to fail; yet this practice of application of remedies is seen over and over again in the quest for public education excellence. Whether the challenge deals with “closing the achievement gap,” “reducing teenage pregnancy,” or “eliminating bullying in schools,” attempting to cast a far-reaching net over the problem, catching as many members of the cohort as possible in the intervention, and hoping for the proverbial “quick fix” too often is a waste of resources and ends with too many hopefuls winding up with a frustration mentality because another plan did not achieve the results it was designed to net. The cheap and easy fix offers no guarantees; on that point, it is sure to deliver. Also, the unyielding quest to cause positive change to large and generalized groups of students (and educators) does lead to some important distinctions to consider. Whether it is the process used to identify such groups, the method employed to isolate each intervention’s components, or the design of the assessment models, the how, the when, and the why have led educators to some very important distinctions. In addition, applying a pure scientific research model in schools is impossible since their very existence does not allow for the isolation of a single variable to manipulate while holding all others constant. Variable modification is a constant in public schools, meaning that any scientific study is fundamentally compromised by this challenge. This results in the application of a “packet” of variables to the challenge. When that “packet” does achieve some measure of success, it is not possible to know exactly which strategy caused the improvement. Another interesting aspect of this conversation is when the generalization does become the distinction, either by chance or politics, or through some other means. There is danger in either this development or in having a distinction generalized through a population. So, when generalizations are the discussion, one cannot ignore the exceptions. In fact, they are highlighted through the use of distinctions. Through this complex dialogue, at times an entire generalization is a distinction and the outlier, either positive or negative to that generalization, is just that, an

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anomaly. At times, the exception may be the distinction. About these points the reader will have to make the interpretation. Timing is also important. About this Malcolm Gladwell spoke in his work The Tipping Point. Could it be more the chance alignment of any number of variables that causes change than any intervention application? And, could it not be the special people looking at that distinct data at a particular time that make all the difference? Absent any one of these conditions, the matter would be lost or go uncorrected. Generalities, distinctions, timing, and people must all be considered in this dialogue. Critics may point out that generalizations are simply enigmas, wrapped in a shroud, and clouded by perception. That they may be. However, the institution is so bombarded with them as to make this discourse both necessary and crucial. However, it is about these distinctions and the values that caused them to erupt from the generalizations from which they were borne that this text speaks. Readers should consider thoughtfully these generalities of distinction as they plan for the future of our public schools. Our nation is depending on it.

Introduction

It was in April of 1983 when A Nation at Risk went public, a document promoted by the National Commission on Excellence in Education that cast such a chilling account of public education that few who read it could not help but oft repeat that one quote that became the mantra for public education reform, “If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves.” The paper was promoted as the epitome of erudite inspection of multiple data streams dangling from public schools and used at the bully pulpit by policymakers for promoting impetuous change for that overarching institution. Why impetuous change? There is a pointed lack of citations from the numerous statistics used in A Nation at Risk. This seemed to bother none of the critics of public schools at the time. However, Robert Huelskamp and a small team of researchers examined the same data points used to crucify public education in the aforementioned report and found astoundingly different results which were summarily published in the Sandia Report. This so embarrassed and incensed the “powers that be” that it is reported that David Kearns, deputy secretary of education at the time, told Huelskamp and his troops, “You bury this or I’ll bury you.” Huelskamp became a major attraction at national education conventions. He affirmed that censorship was alive and well at the highest levels of government. He shared that individuals’ titles were changed as were their telephone numbers (remember that this was well before the advent of cell phone and technological communication that exist today) and that the only way the xix

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paper finally came out was that “bootleg copies” were carried home, copied, and distributed. It was big. Huelskamp spoke in Delaware telling his story to state and local educators, and the media. The reaction was surprising. So entrenched they were already with the mantra of institutional educational failure that the media was disinterested, state educators feigned fascination, and local people who labored in public schools appeared fearful to contradict the rapidly growing perception of the status quo in the very institution in which they had invested their lives. In 1995, David Berliner and Bruce Biddle published The Manufactured Crisis. Replete with citations, it further discounted the “manufactured chaos and inefficiency” touted in A Nation at Risk with additional facts and data. They, too, became hot convention speakers. Berliner traveled Delaware and talked about his data through another three-day itinerary through the state to expose his ideas to as many state and local educators and media as possible. The result was a similar reaction similar to the one that Huelskamp had experienced. This development is very important for three reasons. First, what you are about to read is based on diverse and vast experiences. It is the perspective formed after forty-three years in public education espoused to the notion that schools will make a difference in our culture, that education is the ticket to the future, and that people will realize this and take advantage of every opportunity afforded them as administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community members to make our public school experience the very best it may be. The challenge is that this text does not have the support of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, making it suspect. In order to build some credibility with those who will read this tome, the author now shares some points of his past, his experience, and his qualifications. He began his career in public education as a teacher and coach in 1973. He moved quickly through high school assistant principal and principal positions and found himself, at the age of thirty-six, as a superintendent of a comprehensive school district. That lasted for eleven years, well beyond the average tenure for that position. He was fortunate enough to be named the state administrator of the year and the state superintendent of the year during that experience. He moved into a director position in a neighboring district, retired from that state, and assumed building level administrative experience in another which enabled him to collect experience at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. During this time, he participated in countless taskforces, committees, commissions, and meetings at the local, state, and federal level, all designed with a singular purpose, that of improving the effectiveness of public schools, from kindergarten through high school graduation. Along the way he was

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fortunate enough to have over 130 articles published in state and national educational publications and to have made over 135 presentations at state and national conferences and conventions. Both the articles and the publications covered diverse topics, all with the intent of making our public schools better. He has carried membership in fifteen different educational organizations and assumed the position of president for four state-level chapters of each. Since 1987, he has served as an adjunct professor for four universities in their masters- and doctorate-level educational leadership programs. He has either worked very closely with or studied meticulously the works of educators such as John Goodlad, David Berliner, Jay McTighe, Charlotte Danielson, Fenwich English, Alfie Kohn, Morris Massey, Ronald Edmonds, W. James Popham, Carol Ann Tomlinson, Perry Zirkel, Robert Marzano, William Daggett, Linda Darling-Hammond, Jonathan Kozol, Roland Barth, Guy Dowd, Harry Wong, Gerald Bracey, Benjamin Bloom, Todd Whitaker, Robyn Jackson, John Dewey, Larry Bell, Carl Glickman, Robert Fulghum, and Michael LaMorte. He has also either worked closely with or studied the craft of non-educators such as Jay Mathews, Malcolm Gladwell, Joel Barker, Robert Huelskamp, Tom Peters, Mark Scharenbroich, Paul Hersey, Kenneth Blanchard, M. Scott Peck, Peter Senge, Anthony Tiatorio, Michael Korda, Kent Keith, Spencer Johnson, Linda and Richard Eyre, Dr. Ben Carson, Stephen Covey, and John Koller. It is hoped that this demonstration of background and experience sufficiently responds to any questions of credibility regarding observations about which he reports and statements he will make. The matter of substantiating claims made in any discourse regarding education is an important one. Often he has said to doctorate students, “Show me the research. There is good research; there is bad research.” Indeed, one text he used in a doctorate policy class showed numerous examples of policymakers “lying with data.” There are many creative ways to do this. Gerald Bracey and David Berliner were masters at exposing this sinister craft. It is also understood that there is qualitative research and there is quantitative research; there are case studies. So, it comes to this. Absent citations, the reader is asked to consider what you read; it is not important that you agree. Agreement absent inspection is a fool’s errand. However, it is long held that the mark of a truly educated individual is the ability to consider a point on which he does not agree. Indeed, the very reason this book has been penned is to get people to think a bit differently, to move from what Joel Barker calls “paradigm paralysis” to possibly becoming “paradigm pioneers.” These are the writer’s observations, his understandings of how business has been conducted in public education during the past four plus decades. It is through the prism that is his whole life experience that he explains the pluses,

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the minuses, the ups, and the downs of school in the public realm. These are his generalities of distinction. Others are sure to have their own perspectives. That should make for courageous conversations. It must be pointed out that there are observations, correlations, and causations. These terms are not synonymous. The generalities and distinctions contained on the following pages are merely what the author has observed over the course of his career in education. He will allow the reader to determine the measure of correlation or causation present for each situation identified. After watching and listening all of these years, his sense is that those who spend much time in public education go through an indoctrination process and join the ranks of those who resist change at all cost. Once he was told, “The only person who really appreciates change is a baby with a soiled diaper.” As you read on, it is his intent to air some “dirty laundry” in order to have you think differently about how “things are done” but, more importantly, “why they are done” the way they are. Finally, it is not enough to simply read this book, smile politely, and place it on the shelf. What you do afterwards is all that matters. Again, using Barker’s classic statement about the relationship between vision and action, “Vision without action is only a dream; action without vision simply wastes time; vision and action can change the future.” John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage is stuffed with quotes about the importance of taking action. Whether it’s Andrew Jackson’s “One man with courage makes a majority,” Dante’s “The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality,” Thomas Carlyle’s “The courage we desire and prize is not the courage to die decently but to live manfully,” Francis Bacon’s “. . . left only to God and to the angels to be lookers on,” or the many examples he illustrates throughout the book, Kennedy drives home the point that there can be a vast difference between the popular decision and the correct decision and that pure leadership often involves sacrifice. Jefferson is also to have said, “It takes time to persuade men to do even what is for their own good.” Perhaps the time you will spend consuming these pages will be ample to spur you into action. This was not written to have the reader agree; these words have been placed on these pages to have you question. Think carefully about what follows. The author has been doing so for over forty-three years. He doesn’t like where we are going.

Chapter 1

Generalities of Distinction How We Look at Students

Educators typically feature students in groups and cohorts and use statistically influenced nomenclature to aggregate them into such for the purposes of analysis, ratings, and other study. This has become particularly prevalent as public education has been drawn into high stakes accountability experiences and scores have been thrust under the microscope to determine school and strategy success. This macro approach is important, proponents insist, to ensure that attention is being paid to sub-groups and their progress is being marked, and stimulated, similar to those of other sub-groups. This is not as easy as it seems. Some groups of students do not fit into the categories imposed on local schools by the federal government. For instance, the challenge a growing number of Haitian students presented as a conundrum for one school as administrators needed to accurately determine the success of their secondary schools. Haitian students were to be grouped under the “African American” heading, was the response from the state. Unfortunately, secondary students from Haiti were likely to have been absent from school for one to three years prior their arrival at school and struggled with the English language. As such, they victimized the success the school was having with the African American population in state and federal reports. An attempt was made to deal with their language barrier through the use of specialized language software and purchase of French Algebra texts, but their progress lagged far below that of other students and, particularly their African American classmates, with whom they were grouped. This was also a contributing factor in reported student discipline statistics as Haitian data was included with that of the African American students, compromising the success educators were having with stimulating their decision-making experiences in a positive way. It was the same for attendance 1

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Chapter 1

and high school graduation rates. As this population of students grew, it had a greater and more negative impact on the total and African American data sets. As such, it served to skew the success that educators were having with one of the more important sub-groups. Thus, the ratings the school was given did not accurately reflect the progress staff were making with identified sub-groups. No change ever came from either the federal or state level, and no indication of interest or sympathy was ever shown. The matter of blended families has also caused challenges with how students are identified. In fact, a separate category has been developed to accommodate multiple race students. Another approach has been to have students, and their parents, declare one ethnicity. How these students’ data factors into high stakes analysis for testing, discipline, attendance, and high school graduation has not yet been determined. It adds to the enigmatic arena of accountability for teachers, administrators, students, and school boards. This infatuation with subgroups of students has forced school schedulers to consider the ethnicity and gender implications of Advanced Placement classes, special education designations, and technical classes such as cosmetology and woodworking, and has found its way into extracurricular activities in fascinating ways, guaranteeing females the right to play football while denying males the opportunity to participate in field hockey. One example deals with a situation that had dramatic Title IX implications for a school district and devastating public relations results for it as well. A very ambitious group of parents wanted to substantially upgrade the dugouts for the baseball program. This was a project costing thousands of dollars. The boosters were very active, extremely supportive, and wanted to give as much as they could, in both their time and their money, for the varsity and junior varsity teams. The problem was that there was no companion group of parents for the softball program. The dilemma for the school system was to either “find” a comparable amount of money in a very tight budget for the softball program or respond to the group of energized baseball supporters that the school district could not afford to accept their gift. Because of dire economic conditions, the school district was forced to do the latter, which prompted a predictable reaction from the parents. This distinction did not sit well with them. However, the generality of comparing unlike groups to each other in terms of the support they received at the local level was the point of the ruling. There is another very important matter to consider when comparing generalized groups, be they by gender, ethnicity, sexual preference (another role that has been designated to public school people is that of protecting the rights of individuals who make decisions about their personal lives that



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are not aligned with the values of the majority), religious affiliation, and any other designation. That is that each individual student does not fit perfectly into his or her assigned group. And, depending on the situation or experience, students may elect to switch groups. This makes it very difficult to design strategies and models to maximize the experience of each and every student while conforming to regulations and policy that has been dictated to the local level. The impossible responsibility of the local administrator is “to be everything for everyone without offending even one.” An example of this can be the parent running into the principal’s office demanding that a particular topic not be taught to her son in health class. An explanation that the federal government demanded that it be taught but, if she was willing to submit a written note, her son would be provided a comparable and suitable task, but that did not meet her satisfaction. Not yielding even a foot, she wanted the superintendent’s contact information and left yelling that her next stop was the governor’s office. Principals do not make the problems; they don’t want the problems, but the problems often find their way to the principal’s office. Scanning a church bulletin on May 14, 1989, provided this thought, “New England author Henry David Thoreau wrote, ‘The mass of man (humans) lead lives of quiet desperation.’ It is still true. We mostly lead lives devoid of mystery, of wonder, or word revealing our destiny. We lead lives focused on what ‘is.’ And what ‘is’ is a world of crumbling aspirations, dying men and women, destroyed ideals, and shoddy ‘goods.’ That is our daily world, a world we would transcend if we could.” When our youth are faced with such a dismal scenario, won’t drugs, alcohol, or other means of escape provide for them, however brief, some relief from this reality? Could there not be another, and more inviting, option? Thoreau’s words are fitting for those who wish to be only spectators in life, playing no major role, not participating, but only watching as their lives pass by. For those who believe they control their future, their destiny, who could not see the series of events which make up life as being fixed, the outlook may be much different. There are choices. To act or to not. To try or to not. To enact change in ourselves and in others . . . or to not. With those choices come risks . . . and consequences. Perhaps therein lays the reason why so many choose to watch. For those who long for lives of mystery and wonder and of controlling their destiny, the emphasis must be turned from what is . . . to what may be. If what “is” is a world of crumbling aspirations, dying men and women, destroyed ideals, and shabby goods, it is because we choose that it be so. The point should not be that our daily world is a world we would transcend if we could; it should be that it is a world we would transcend if we choose!

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That is as true for education as it is for life. The choice belongs to us. Do we want for our children a world filled with quiet desperation? Or do we not? In one school, teachers had very little to complain about. However, this was the esoteric problem about which they moaned one winter. It seems the paper rollers in the women’s restroom didn’t roll smoothly enough. Don’t we have more important matters with which to deal in our public schools? HOW STUDENTS LOOK AT US In the middle of May 2014, University of Missouri football player Michael Sam was drafted by the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams in the seventh round. A video of him kissing his male partner quickly went viral. Those critical of the exposure this kissing incident collected were quickly rebuked by the pundits who themselves were very concerned just a few years earlier when Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow entered the draft. They said his “Tebowing,” getting on one knee to give thanks to God for his accomplishments, would be divisive in the pro-football locker room. Isn’t it amusing how these individuals tried to explain their way out of this situation? Or . . . is it disturbing? Our children are watching. Sadly, a student is more likely to be suspended from school for reading a bible on school grounds than for yelling “F . . .” at his teacher. This should be a very troubling message for our culture. Our children are watching . . . and listening. Individuals react personally to how a situation, a decision, impacts them. And, they will do what they can to advantage themselves through affiliation with any group they can. A sitting superintendent once said that everyone sees the world through their level of “relative deprivation.” That is they count up the score and see where they fall. Further, individuals in decision-making positions must know that those who like the results of the decision forget in not more than three days while those who do not like the choice never forget. The formula runs like this. Every choice has victims. As educators move up the ladder into schoollevel administrative positions to district-level administrative slots and eventually superintendent positions, the decisions with which they are confronted have more and more emotional baggage. People have invested themselves more deeply into wanting to win as they have passed through each level of the appeal process. So, the higher ranking the individual is making the decision, the more scorn he is going to endure from the victim of that decision. People do not want a correct decision; they want the decision made to suit them.



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This is why listening is so important. Please note that the point is not careful listening, or attentive listening, or meticulously listening. You either listen or you do not. The listening glass is neither half full nor half empty. It is either full or empty. However, a victim of a decision will push back saying that the administrator did not listen. The reply must be, “I listened completely to what you said. However, I also have to completely listen to the other side. I reserve the right to make an objective and fair decision in this matter, which may or may not be to your liking.” Students “don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” While it would, on face value, appear to be self-defeating, most students will not produce for teachers, coaches, or administrators whom they feel do not care about them. Our values are communicated more by what we do and less by what we say. As a result, if you hear an educator pontificating about how much he cares, begin to wonder how much he really cares. Caring is an other-imposed value. We behave and others determine if we care. Our only hope is to demonstrate a persistent and consistent behavior of caring so that others will believe in us. Here is a question for you. If the local police showed up at your school and arrested you for caring, could they get sufficient evidence to get a conviction? What would witnesses say you said; what would witnesses say you did? This is point we must think about every day we step into our schools. Students view educators as the objective decision-makers. However, their perception is jaded by the level of sophistication with which they determine what they mean by being objective. Unbiased to them too often means, “Did I get what I want?” That may be in terms of an appeal of a grade or an objection to some level of consequence they had been given for a faulty decision, or any other development with which they disagree. Is this thinking on their part due largely to how they have been parented? Should we take the word No out of the dictionary? Don’t children respond to “No” with “I’ll ask you later,” “I’ll check with Mom,” or “Are you feeling okay?” Can’t the parental rejoinder be “No means not now, not later, never. Read my lips; no.” Students in our public schools believe that “No” has some other meaning. Students also expect, and trust, adults to make the correct decisions. A new California law was introduced the first week of January in 2014, authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a democrat in San Francisco, and signed by Governor Jerry Brown. It allowed transgender students throughout California to use bathrooms, locker rooms, and play sports with the gender they identified with beginning January 1. The law provided for students attending California public kindergarten to twelfth-grade schools to participate in sex-segregated school programs

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and activities based on their matching gender and use facilities based on their identifying gender, regardless of the gender listed on school records. Transgender is a term used to describe people whose gender identity, gender expression, or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth. Notwithstanding the challenge of “making this work” on the part of school officials, imagine the burden of attempting to verify that a male is not just trying to “play the system” by claiming affiliation with females in order to play field hockey. What if a student changes his or her (emphasis added) mind? And, of course, there is the major point of what about the tens of thousands of non-transgender students who will have their lives completely turned upside down because of the wants and desires of a relative few. This matter was exacerbated when the family of a student attending school in Maine sued in 2009 because that transgender student was not allowed to use the girls’ bathroom but, instead, was directed to a staff restroom. School officials violated Maine’s anti-discrimination law, the state’s highest court ruled in 2014. The court agreed that this was a “difficult issue” but that school officials needed to “do what they needed to do to comply with the law.” When parents who are offended by these kinds of decisions confront school officials, what is it that which school officials “need to do”? When situations such as the above take place in public schools, more and more students, and their parents, begin to lose that trust so badly needed to make schools work. And, once lost, that trust is nearly impossible to win back. TOLERANCE UNRECIPROCATED BECOMES SUBMISSION AND ABDICATION Schools are coerced into following the lead of the culture with respect to values clarification. When there exists a clash in the sorting of those morals, educators are placed in a difficult position. A METAPHORIC EXAMPLE Life was good in the land of Triangle. The citizens were rejoicing in a culture of happiness, hope, and satisfaction. Their strong belief in the sum of all three angles totaling 180 degrees and area being determined by multiplying base and height and cutting that in half had served them well. They were not so strict in their doctrine so as to not allow for differences. There were Isosceles Triangles, Equilateral Triangles, Right Triangles, and Scalene Triangles.



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They also permitted both acute and obtuse angles, which, they felt, allowed for divergent thinking. They also provided for multiple sized Triangles. But, all that diversity had to be within the parameters of the Triangle. Their pride in the degrees total and allegiance to their definition of area, they insisted, kept them focused and on a shared mission. A century before they had warded off a threat by the Squares, who wanted to open and close the Triangles’ angles and add another side and angle to create perfect Squares, each with four ninety-degree angles. This thinking, the Triangles felt, was too restrictive and did not allow for diversity. Still, they felt that while individual differences were to be celebrated, that was to be done under the umbrella of the Triangle, in which they had much pride and had found attainment. As the Triangles’ success grew, they sensed the need to reach out to others to share their good fortune. One group they eventually welcomed was the Squares, the culture they had rejected so many years before. As the Squares began to assimilate into the Triangle culture, they began to influence the Triangles’ thinking. The Triangles began to question why they had so passionately rejected the Squares’ way of life before. Wanting to be seen as an enlightened culture, the Triangles began to reconsider their feelings about the sharp corners needed for Triangles, especially acute Triangles; they began to agree that other forms of shapes could also be acceptable. Since everyone believed in Geometry, they reasoned, how could this be wrong. Tolerance was the mantra of the land. As a result, other shapes began to immigrate into Triangle. This put a strain on the Triangles’ resources as these new shapes needed schooling, jobs, and health care. When the Circles began moving into Triangle, they softened the Triangles’ values on many of their other hard and fast beliefs. Shapes no longer needed only straight lines, and perimeter could also be said to be circumference. Some language that used to be considered profanity was now accepted into mainstream conversation. Determining that area could also be through multiplying pi with r-squared was also now acceptable. Many rejoiced at this development. The Squares and Circles were not interested in changing their own way of thinking; they looked to impose their values on the Triangles and enjoy the success and good fortune of the Triangles’ way of life by altering it to their own liking. Because the Triangles wanted desperately to be viewed as politically correct, they did not challenge these impositions to their values, beliefs, and vision. Along with the Triangles, Squares, and Circles, Trapezoids, Rectangles, Rhombuses, Parallelograms, and other kinds of Quadrilaterals began to emerge. Still the culture was shaped predominantly by the influence of the

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Triangles, the Squares, and the Circles. People began to refer to this new land as Trisquircle. While the influence of the other thinking was positive in some ways, in others major problems began to develop. These challenges surfaced in fiscal ways, political activities, health care, jobs, and in determining what a family was. As the Triangles lost their hold on their values, they also let slip the success of their way of life. They had lost their focus and, with it, their success. After a while a group of the Triangles came to realize that, in fact, they were no longer Triangles, that the way of life they had built into prosperity had disappeared, and that their children would now be born into a life of strife. They asked, “Is tolerance unreciprocated submission and abdication?” Had they been tolerant to a fault and caused the demise of their successful way of life? It is not possible to be everything to everyone and be successful. That message is very true for public schools. THE CHEAPNESS OF PUBLIC EDUCATION Some worry about the “cheapness” of public schooling. Often, the food served in the public school cafeterias is what the government cannot sell elsewhere. From toilet paper to teacher supplies, the almighty bidding process is what drives the decision-making. It is not until they have become adults that most students can see through this veneer and understand what it really is. The drive to purchase the least expensive program, tool, food, equipment, or other resource for schools serves to diminish the necessary respect that is important to holding the art of schooling at some level of esteem. Students and their parents deserve the best. Understandably, educators must be competent stewards of the public’s funds, but there must be more balance in this equation. In many states, local educators must motivate the citizenry to vote affirmatively to raise tax rates to support schools. In far too many examples of this, the public’s reaction is “How little can I contribute to the support of schools?” rather than “What can I do to get more support for our schools?” While it is true that (sadly for those who labor in public education) the local school tax is the only tax on which people can vote and often voice their opposition to taxing in general with a negative vote for the school tax, this scenario is not lost on our students. If education is so important, they may wonder, why are so many people so willing to do so little to support it? This is another example of how our actions speak so much louder than our words. If education is important, our students will see more support for it . . . from all sectors of our communities.



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Here is another example of “misguided values” that have a startling impact on how students view the value of schooling and the purpose of education. This example has been repeated over and over. It was announced in all of the media on September 6, 1989. Tony Mandarich, the hulking graduate of Michigan State, the Number Two pick in the National Football League’s April draft, had finally signed his contract with the Green Bay Packers. Packer Nation could now all breathe a collective sigh of relief. Ending a forty-five-day holdout, the rookie offensive lineman would earn $4.4 million over four years. Somehow, in the topsy-turvy world that has become our culture, that was important. It really was. In comparison, the budget for a rural school district for educating some 3,150 students, maintaining five buildings, providing salaries and benefits for nearly four hundred employees, and purchasing materials, supplies, and energy was approximately $4.3 million. Debaters could point out that, while the school’s budget was for one year, Mandarich’s contract was for four years, and two million dollars of it was a signing bonus. That misses the point. Mandarich wasn’t the first, or the most expensive, rookie to ink a contract that year. Troy Aikman said yes to a six-year pact which netted him $11.2 million. And there were plenty more . . . in football as well as in other sports . . . in sports and in entertainment. In fact, the list keeps growing. It is difficult to compare the importance of what Mandarich would do in Green Bay with what was going on in the school system. How much Mandarich would contribute to the causes of at-risk students, the challenge of high school dropouts, literacy, drug education, and everything else that educators laboring in public schools tackle each and every day? Could Mandarich, for all of that money, guarantee the Packers a playoff berth, much less a Super Bowl ring? It turns out he couldn’t. But, every day, hardworking and caring educators are making possible a better future for the students under their direction. How can it be that their work is valued at a much lower level? Why is this important? As the macro view of how schooling works, this desire to cope with education in generalities, dealing with and supporting groups, cohorts, and sub-groups, clashes with the reality of the micro experience, the personal experiences of individuals, one can easily see how federal- or state-imposed policies and regulations do not provide for the individual. One size does not fit all in purchasing shoes; neither does one model accommodate the vast differences that individuals bring to the door of the public schoolhouse. Yet it is the reality of the personal experience that truly defines the success of the school. That is one reason why, in Gallup Poll after Gallup Poll, people rate their children’s schools more favorably than others. Part of this may be written off to that old cliché, familiarity breeds support, but the actual

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personal experiences that students and families have are more on target than are school data spewed out of federal and state agencies that attempt to define experiences never really witnessed by those doing the examination. A superintendent had a very important experience during the days prior to May 24, 1989, the day that staff, students, and parents celebrated scholarship at the first annual high school academic banquet. This kind of celebration had not been done before, this celebrating academic excellence. People had clapped their hands for students’ prowess in athletic endeavors, music and art accomplishments, and attendance, but strangely had not ever recognized students who reached an academic milestone. What kind of message did this send to students? No newspaper had an academic page, on which the accomplishments of students in the classroom were proclaimed to the public. Sports pages were abundant. Educators wanted to “walk the talk” as students say, making academics important by celebrating them. Plans were made for the banquet; invitations were sent home with the request to let school officials know how many could be expected to attend in order to have sufficient food for the evening. Each student to be recognized was given the invitation, and school officials waited for the parental responses. A funny development happened on the way to the banquet, a serious point about academic achievement. The high school staff waited for the calls to come in from the parents. They waited and waited. A few calls trickled in. Shortly before the banquet, the staff had only received responses from about 10 percent of the families of students who were to be honored. They were concerned and made calls to the homes of the families who had not yet responded. Several calls brought a similar reaction . . . then more calls and a trend had been identified. A number of students had not informed their parents of the banquet; some even were reluctant to attend! Parents, upon learning of the purpose of the banquet, were enthusiastic in their support. As a result of educators and parents working together, participation in the program swelled to near capacity. In fact, only one family could not attend because their student was visiting a college that evening. Still, the perplexing development on the part of the students remained; they felt uncomfortable in being recognized for their academic achievement. They were anxious about being embarrassed. The message had been crystallized. It simply wasn’t fashionable to do well in school! This is not an issue that may be dumped in the laps of the parents. Call after call revealed that they were behind this new initiative. In fact, if not for the efforts of some parents, the turnout would not have been so impressive. This matter is embedded in peer pressure, that significant influence of one’s age group. The desire to be liked and the need to belong in a group, any



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group, sometimes causes our youth to make decisions much differently than we would like. How can we change that? For starters, we can begin to model the importance of education . . . as adults. The academic banquet is a beginning. Families may make education important by designating time each day during which studying must be done. Adults volunteering for programs which support education is another. Parents becoming active participants in school organizations will help. And making sure that school attendance is promoted will also make a statement. Encouraging students to attend each day and planning vacations around the school calendar will tell students what is important. The list could go on and on. But modeling on the part of parents isn’t enough. Students’ peers must also work to change this pressure. That could mean small groups of students joining together to discuss and promote the importance of a solid educational experience. The discussion could expand further into goal-setting and making career decisions. The groups could reach out and welcome other students into the dialogue. It will take courage and some adult guidance, but it will make a difference. There are existing student organizations which could embrace this movement, this notion of celebrating academic achievement. Hopefully they will choose to do so. Naiveté? Not necessarily. It is possible. The beginning step has been taken. Schools, communities, and our nation cannot afford a generation of students embarrassed by their academic success. Another important point to examine is how people feel when an official from the school contacts a student’s home. Students and parents assume that when a call comes from the teacher or administrator, something unfortunate or negative has transpired. It is either an injury, a poor decision leading to some form of disciplinary action, or a formal communication indicating that the student’s attendance is poor and the next step will be the truancy officer. Try it sometime. Call the home of a student about a positive matter. Use these steps. Call and identify yourself as a representative of the school; pause. There will be a deep sigh on the other end of the telephone. Next, relate some positive information about the student; pause again. It is nearly a certainty that the parent will be waiting for “the other shoe to drop” indicating the “real reason” for the call, a negative development. School people should make it a goal to make at least one positive call per day. Invite other adults in the school, teachers, secretaries, custodians, anyone, to refer students to the assistant principal. Call the home, share what the positive reason for the call is, and indicate the name of the adult making the referral. Parents are amazed! And, their children come to school the next day with a very positive impression of the school and that adult.

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Assistant principals often find themselves spending 90 percent of their time with less than 10 percent of the students. You know which students. Try calling the president of the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society to the office one day. Predictably, upon entering the door, she will ask, “What did I do wrong?” Quickly, you have to respond, “You don’t do things wrong; you are the president of our National Honor Society.” Use a system to try to catch students doing “good” and talk with them and their parents about it. If you believe that a lot of negative student behavior is simply trying to get someone’s attention, you can feed that need in a positive way and the behavior not so magically changes in a positive way. Try it. A high school principal said he would never forget the first call he made to the home of one of his seniors. The student’s mother said, with a bit of emotion, “He has been in school for thirteen years and this is the first time anyone has said anything good about him.” The principal placed the telephone back on his desk, his hand trembling. What a statement about how business is done in schools, he thought. There are regulations requiring contact with the homes of students because of negative attendance patterns, inappropriate behavior, and negative grading patterns, but try to find any language in any administrator’s or teacher’s job description that requires that individual to make at least five positive calls to the homes of different students a week. It simply is not there! Another call the principal made to a home resulted in an equally astonishing response. That call was made in the evening, as most were. The next day, the parent of that student called the school and asked for the principal. She wanted to know if he called her the evening before. She was fearful that it was a prank. The administrator assured her it was the “real deal” and she thanked him profusely. Is this the perception of students and parents of communication from schools? If communication takes place on a personal level, that experience must have been because of some negative development. We must alter that perception. Our students’ behavior and our parents’ support are counting on it. A superintendent once initiated a program called Suspend a Student; Invite a Parent. This was done to encourage more parental involvement on the part of those parents whose children were demonstrating more challenging behavior in the schools. So often, parents would come to the school disciplinary hearing and ask, “Isn’t there anything I can do to keep him from being suspended?” Too often, that request had been rendered too late to be accommodated. That was changed. If the student’s suspension was due to actions that did not include weapons, drugs, or violence, parents were told that school officials would erase one day of out-of-school suspension for every day that the



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parent came to school and stayed with that student all day long. It was felt that this would encourage more involvement and communication between the school and those parents whose cooperation we needed most, the parents of disruptive students. This effort met with less than moderate success as the parents feigned reason after reason for not being able to participate. Their lack of participation was certainly viewed by their children who saw it in terms of what was important in their homes. Another model that was introduced at the middle school was called Big Brother and Big Sister Come to School. Understanding that it is not possible to legislate caring, all of the adults in the middle school, from administrators and teachers to custodians and cafeteria workers and secretaries, were asked if they would like to spend one hour a week talking with a student. Rather than telling teachers that they had to spend one morning a week in some form of counseling mode with students some of them dreaded to see, it was felt this would be a better idea. School officials didn’t want the conversation to be about school; it was to be about the student’s interests; they wanted the student to identify with at least one adult in the school in a positive way. Numerous positive responses to this request were received. Next, every student who had demonstrated a pattern of troubling behavior during the previous year was identified. That behavior was to be a combination of achievement, attendance, and behavior. It was the feeling that if those students could be matched with a caring adult, it would inject into their public schooling experience an intervention that could transform their attitude which would improve their performance. Rather than assign the adults to the students, students were asked if there was an adult in the school that they would like to share some time with each week. Students were able to pick their adult “friend.” Important training was provided to all of our adult volunteers so as to maximize the experience and limit the possibility of some inappropriate results. Interesting was the tenure of the initial meeting with the students. Shortly after the meeting, each of the students was to express their reaction to the plan. One student had this to say, “When I looked around the room I saw who the students in this meeting were. We know who we are. I thought you were going to throw us all out of school.” That was so perceptive from a middle school student. At the end of the school year, at program’s end, all of the students were interviewed again individually. One student remarked, “For the first time in my life, I found myself defending a teacher during an argument in the bathroom.” Amazing! While the program did not correct all of the students’ behavior, it was successful with over 90 percent of them.

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When the educational reform studies hit the media in the early 1980s, one point was made abundantly clear. Students should be given more. Educators were told that they should commit to more days of school to the annual calendar, to more hours to each school day, and to more homework for their students. This, the reformers cried, would stimulate our youth to emerge from the local schoolhouse better able to grapple with the ever-growing list of complex issues plaguing our society. While the “experts” continued to wrestle with the issues of more days and more hours, school boards and administrators quickly embraced the concept of more homework. They were only too happy to acquiesce. Is it working? Will it work? Will simply giving more homework make a difference in the performance of the masses who attend our schools? As the astute heart specialist warns his patients, “Don’t add salt until you’ve tasted!” perhaps educators should use the same approach when dealing with homework. Don’t add more homework until you know what’s being done with what is already assigned and carefully analyze the potential benefits and drawbacks of increasing the load. Simply giving more of the same won’t work. If homework presently is not effective, for whatever reason, more of it alone is not the answer. Is that not the definition of insanity, demonstrating the same behavior over and over while expecting different results? Finding processes which will draw parents into a cooperative effort to support more homework will help. Seeking and implementing measures which will motivate students to complete homework is also important. There are additional concerns. We have strayed from the intention of this important educational tool and reduced it to a mere bookkeeping process. Do we give too much homework and not make it important? It is unrealistic to expect teachers to be able to collect and correctly evaluate mounds of papers each day? As a result, much homework that is assigned is reviewed quickly . . . or not at all. While the potential for improving students’ grades is minimal if the homework is completed, the potential for a significant negative impact for incomplete work is high. Should less homework be assigned? And, should that which is assigned be made to be more important? Should it not be reviewed; should comments, both written and oral, not be shared with students; should the potential for improving students’ grades be equal to the consequences of not completing their homework? If the answers to these questions are affirmative, then several goals will have been realized. The paperwork burden on teachers will have been reduced. Homework will have been made more important, which will promote student completion of it. Homework will become a factor in improving



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grades, not damaging them. And, more importantly, homework will promote the educational process for students. Interestingly, there now exists pushback on the part of parents who have seen the volume of homework increased. With two or three children in the home, all of whom have more homework to conquer, parents find themselves running out of time with either managing their children’s time or providing oversight in the completion of homework. As a result, educators have now seen “the pendulum swinging back” with respect to the matter of more homework. By the way, if there is one issue that will hit the hearts of most students, it is the discussion of how much homework to assign. Remember that this practice causes dynamic tension between their school responsibilities and the time they consider their own when they arrive at home. Another matter sure to get the attention of most students, particularly those attending public secondary schools, is dress codes. In the mid-1980s, the issue of student dress codes captured the attention of the media when a USA Today article detailed garment policies that further restricted student apparel. The reasons? Principal Robin Oden of Detroit’s Mumford High School reported of students being beaten, robbed, and even murdered over clothing. As a result, the preamble of the school’s dress code included the language that students who used to “preen about, modeling flashy, expensive clothing, exerting little energy in their academic pursuits” would be allowed no more. Fashions expelled from Mumford High School were coats and jackets made from leather, sheepskin, or other animal hides; fur or fur-trimmed coats and jackets; jogging suits; expensive gym shoes and boots with snakeskin, lizard skin, leather, or other ornaments; flashy rings (no more than one ring per hand was permitted and rings could be no larger than one-half inch vertically or horizontally); mini-skirts; designer glasses; halter tops; fishnet or other transparent garments; and scarves worn around the head. The rationale for this may well be why at least eighty-nine public elementary schools scattered through the Eastern portion of the United States had adopted policies which required students to wear uniforms to school by that same time. According to supporters of this trend, there were three reasons: to cut expenses for parents who had to try to “keep up with the Jones,” to eliminate competition among students who tried to outdo each other with fancy clothing, and, most importantly, to put the focus in the schools back on academics. “Our uniforms cost thirty dollars when a pair of jeans can cost you fifty or sixty dollars,” said Frederick Marley, principal of Charles R. Drew Elementary School in Miami, Florida, at the time.

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“We had lots of fights perpetuated by the fact that kids were teasing each other about clothes,” added Jeffie Frazier, Helene Grant Elementary school (New Haven, Connecticut) principal. And, from School No. 5 in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, Principal Rose Lopez said, “I’ve seen success already in children, the feeling of pride. When you feel good about yourself, you can do anything in the world.” There are echoes from decades ago about how student dress impacts their schooling. Yet the debate continues as both supporters and critics line up to add their feelings. Students are watching; they are listening; they are participating in this exchange. How the adults deal with students and the schooling that surrounds them sends a powerful message to students. Students are watching; they are listening. HOW THIS TEXT UNFOLDS In the chapters that follow, the reader will explore the dynamics of the tension between generalities in schools and the personal experiences of those who teach and learn in them, and how those distinctions shape the purpose of courageous conversations. Those conversations should be cause for pause and reflection about our purpose and how well educators are undertaking it. For various reasons, school people are heading in a direction which may place public schools on the path to extinction. That is not a word chosen absent considerable thought. And, it is a destination that hopefully can be avoided. The topics selected for discussion are leadership, ethics, public and private schools, equality and equity, accountability, the achievement gap, data analysis, teacher evaluation, special education, and politics. Reflecting on these categories, it is important to note that they are not analyzed in isolation. What takes place in one arena certainly has impact on all of the others. That is the complexity of the study of education. Likewise, to suggest that an isolated strategy is responsible for the desired results is suspect because it is impossible to conduct pure scientific experiments in schools. That is to examine the impact of manipulating one variable while holding all else constant. This is impossible to do as there is staff turnover, the maturation of students, and the development of a school ethos under a particular leader. The reasons could go on and on. There are more categories in need of conversation. However, it is these that have been selected for this initial work. Remember that it is not important that you agree with the statements made in this book; you must consider the content, argue with it, and use what you eventually feel



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to make public schools better. If that be the outcome of this work, it would have been to good purpose. Finally, at the end of each chapter you, the reader, will have an opportunity to explore one or more scenarios which deal with the content of that chapter. It would not be a bad idea to share these with others. That would enrich the thinking and consideration you experience with each scenario. SCENARIO Ed U. Cate is the principal of a high school of some 1,200 students in grades nine through twelve. The school has 53 percent White, 43 percent African American, 3 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent Other classifications of students. His Free and Reduced Meal (FARM) percentage is 46 percent, and 11 percent of his students have some classification of special education. His English for Speakers of Other Languages population is 1 percent. Students have met the standard in reading in all categories, yet his African American and Hispanic students have fallen just below the standard for mathematics. Students in the special education program have all met or exceeded the standard. He is also pleased that his students have met the attendance requirement for the year, as well as the participation rate for the high stakes assessment program. One of the major challenges haunting Cate is that his school has suffered under the No Child Left Behind ratings because of a dropout rate that is too high. He has met with his school improvement team, designed strategies, enacted those plans, and evaluated their success. As he compares the senior class cohort this year with that same group as ninth graders, he acknowledges that far too many of this group, as freshmen, are not on the path to graduation as their fourth year comes to an end. Cate is a caring administrator who works individually with students to craft individual plans to have them graduate and transition into either the workforce, college, or the military. He is particularly interested and supportive of students who he classifies as “on the edge,” students who come from particularly trying situations and often lack the support elsewhere as they make their way through the high school experience. Some of these students have dropped out. Cate has encouraged them to return to school, crafted student-specific plans for them, and watched in frustration as some have dropped out a second time. Spending additional time analyzing their situations, he persuades them to re-enter school, and the next year develops a different strategy and again provides support. Unfortunately for Cate and his school, each time a student drops out, that incident makes its way into his high stakes report and reduces

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the possibility that his school will be reviewed favorably when the analysis is completed. One student that Cate has been working with for the entire of her four years at the school is Marge Inal. She has dropped out three times. Cate is contemplating the possibility of dissuading her from concluding her high school experience with what amounts to a tenth-grade education. As he discusses this with one of his counselors, Frank Lee Speaking, Speaking tells Cate that it is this kind of pattern that continues to cause the school to be ranked lower than it could be. He also reminds Cate of the tense performance evaluation review Cate had with the district’s director of secondary education, Mark Mie Wurd, at the end of the previous school year. Wurd told Cate that he had to improve the dropout rate or his tenure at the school would be in jeopardy. “Everyone is concerned about this part of our data,” Wurd had said. “Our board is involved; our superintendent is getting heat; and quite frankly, it has become part of my job targets for the coming year. We must reduce our dropout rate.” Cate finds himself torn between his desire to help this student, for whom he considers a high school diploma to be her only hope in life, and the fact that if she re-enters and drops out a fourth time, she will contribute to his eventual demise as the high school principal. This would be devastating for Cate, who just purchased a new home with a higher mortgage and has a son who just began college and a daughter in eleventh grade for whom college costs will soon be a reality. The bewildered high school principal comes to you, his mentor, to discuss this dilemma. What will you tell him to do and why? How can you support him?

Chapter 2

Leadership The Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards

A prisoner of your own ambiguity where indecision and self-doubt render you locked in your status quo strips you of the ability to lead. For far too many would-be leaders in public education, that is the issue. No discourse dealing with the importance of public school leadership would be complete absent discussion of the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards for School Leaders. Developed to be the standard bearers of what school leaders should know and be able to do, the original six standards have been embedded in countless graduate courses in educational leadership and their essence has been used to develop evaluative models for practicing administrators in the field of education. In reviewing these standards, please note the recurring language that begins each standard, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by . . .” Included in each standard are sections dealing with the knowledge that school administrator must have; the dispositions that administrator believes in, values, and is committed to; and the performances that school administrator facilitates and in which he or she engages. The dispositions are deeply held private beliefs. Individuals are capable of “playing the party line” while holding private their real dispositions. These are so important as to be the foundation on which everything else rests. If they are not firmly entrenched in the administrator’s psyche, sooner or later, they will expose themselves and the “house of cards” will collapse. Think of another simple but crucial part of that litany, “who promotes the success of all students.” What behavior, what kinds of decisions, what level of conversation will promote that disposition on a routine basis, from that administrator and from all stakeholders invested in that school? Another important point about these 19

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standards is that they are not to be considered in isolation. Effectiveness in one contributes to success in others. Just the same, hardships in one lead to shortcomings in others. Standard One reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by facilitating the development, articulation, implementation, and stewardship of a vision of learning that is shared and supported by the school community.” A successful educational leader, in terms of this standard, must know who to identify, engage, and sustain the participation of in the development of a vision in order to ensure the representation, on the part of the different internal and external stakeholder groups in the school community, in the process. That leader must also be adroit at identifying the completeness of the school community and, once the vision is developed, hold it up as the standard by which all behavior and decisions are measured. The vision must be more than mere “words on the wall” if it is to have any value. Vision, more than anything else, is about the values of the school community. It is about the distribution of resources, the communication process, and the manner in which all stakeholders respond to the variant and vexing situations which daily arise in the school. Standard Two reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by advocating, nurturing, and sustaining a school culture and instructional program conducive to student learning and staff professional growth.” Perhaps the most elusive goal of the school leader is the ability to create and sustain such a culture. Too often, circumstances beyond the control of that leader impede the ability to do such. However, overcoming those challenges and creating a culture that is both structured and nurturing, for both the students and the staff, and that everyone knows is evolving is the Holy Grail of school leadership. That creates an environment in which people work together to create the future they want; they envision to potential for both students and staff, and they take steps to capitalize on that potential. M. Scott Peck, in his book The Different Drum, notes that organizations, including schools, may move from pseudo community (fake community) through chaos and emptiness, to true community as a result of the able guidance of a competent leader. That leader must be an astute communicator, able to demonstrate both assertive communication (telling the truth and caring about the individual with whom he is communicating) and constructive communication (the ability to disagree with grace) to move the organization thusly. Standard Three reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by ensuring management of the organization, operations, and resources for a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment.”

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In a global sense, this means that every student has a seat and every seat has a student. It means the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system works; that food is hot in the cafeteria; that the roof doesn’t leak; that the buses run on time; and that all classes are covered at all places and at all times. Is it possible for an administrator to convince staff that he is capable of leading them to the future while he is unable to provide for them in the present? How could that be? The all-to-frequent cases of shootings in schools have brought school safety to a place it never before has been. Ensuring that students and staff are safe in every kind of situation has become a matter of the highest priority. However, high stakes testing, preparing students for college and careers, and managing all of the school’s resources, temporal, human, and financial, are also matters of the highest priority. How does that school administrator cope with everything if it is all of the highest priority? That is where vision helps sort out the list. Standard Four reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by collaborating with families and community members, responding to diverse community interests and needs, and mobilizing community resources.” The challenge in meeting this standard may lie in the administrator’s ability to anticipate changes in his or her school community. School communities are becoming more diverse. With that growing diversity comes competing needs. With those competing needs comes the necessity to dialogue, bring people to compromise, and consider the vision of the school. Dealing with finite resources and unlimited wants should always draw people back to the vision. What is to be celebrated, even in times of scarce resources? This standard also is about outreach programs, making all students and their parents feel welcome, about creating the nurturing culture in the school that embraces all students and their backgrounds. The challenge often comes when that same welcoming and nurturing culture does not exist outside of the school. Working with community and other agencies and organizations to create that kind of aura will take time, persistence, and planning. It will be well worth it. Standard Five reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by acting with integrity, fairness, and in an ethical manner.” More than any other, this standard calls our attention to the dispositions that the administrator brings to the school. The question is not only, “What was the decision and what was the result?” It now includes, “What was the intent?” There are far too many examples of “good” educators getting caught up in “sleazy” situations. A question that should arise when this happens is, “What were their true dispositions?” Or, another, “Were they really ‘good’ educators in the first place?” This standard speaks volumes about the

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importance of modeling, about “the appearance of impropriety,” about how fairness may be an other-imposed value, and about how integrity and ethics are so difficult to identify and reveal themselves only in the aftermath of a scandalous situation. Standard Six reads, “A school administrator is an educational leader who promotes the success of all students by understanding, responding to, and influencing the larger political, social, economic, legal, and cultural context.” The hierarchy goes like this. First there is federal law. Nothing can trump the language of federal law. Next comes state law. Following that is local board policy. Finally comes contractual language. As contract negotiations unfold, it is important to consider how that language aligns itself with the law and policy under which it must be implemented. Consider this, “You are either the victim of your environment or the master of it.” You can live by rules and regulations that others impose on you, or you can take action to create the same for the betterment of the future. Every law, every rule, every regulation came into being because some person had an idea. That idea may have had its genesis in the need to promote some good in the future or to prevent some harm from the past from repeating itself. One has to assume that the individuals who promote this new language are themselves well-intended and forthright in their intentions. To assume such is not a misgiving. It takes time to do this. It is time well spent. Practicing school administrators must protect themselves from running afoul of any law, policy, contract, or regulation. Ignorance has not and will not be an excuse. The old advice of, “If you are in doubt, check the policy,” will not do. “Know the policy and you will not be in doubt,” should now be the thinking embedded in each administrator’s mind. Is there a lot of language? Sure. Is it ever changing? You bet. Does this take a lot of time? Indeed. However, the astute school leader is able to digest and understand the meaning of this standard to his or her school’s benefit. One more point about Standard Six. The absolute best gift a school leader can give to his system or school is the language before it is needed. Keeping an alert eye and ear to emerging trends will give that leader direction regarding what new policy, contractual language, or regulation is needed before the situation emerges at the schoolhouse door. This can be the same for state and national law. Imagine attempting to craft language for dealing with sexual harassment while you are embroiled in a sexual harassment case? It is much, much better to have the language in place well before being confronted with the challenge. With the rapid change in our culture through emerging technologies and other developments, school leaders with this skill may be the most sought after in the future. In the fall of 2014, those six original standards were expanded to become eleven. This draft has continued to be modified as stakeholder groups’

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values are considered. The new Standard One continues to emphasize the importance of vision and mission, perhaps restating the importance of this endeavor. Standard Two now speaks to the matter of instructional capacity underscoring the importance of instructional leadership through resource development. Standard Three also speaks to the matter of instruction, this time through the development of effective instructional practices. Standard Four maintains the emphasis on instruction through a focus on curriculum and development. Standard Five promotes a community of caring for students; Standard Six speaks to the professional culture for teachers, Standard Seven promotes communities of engagement for families, and Standard Eight talks about operations and management. Standards Nine, Ten, and Eleven respectively deal with ethical principles and professional norms, social justice and cultural responsiveness, and continuous school improvement. At the time of this writing, these new standards had not yet been analyzed and inculcated into the regular thinking of those studying either educational theory or practice, and have not yet found their way into to curriculum of graduate-level educational leadership courses. LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT There is a crucial distinction between leadership and management. John Gardner, former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare and Director of the Leadership Student Program, wrote in The Nature of Leadership, that leaders think longer term; they put heavy emphasis on the intangibles of vision, values, and motivation; that they look beyond the unit they are heading; that they are outstanding managers; that they have the communication and political skills to cope with the conflicting requirement of multiple constituencies; and that they think in terms of renewal for the organization and its people. In Challenges for School Leaders, Gardner wrote, “Some writers have made attempts to draw fine distinctions between leaders and managers. In the process, leaders usually end up looking like a cross between Napoleon and the Pied Piper and managers like unimaginative clods. Yet leaders are measured by results, their ability to translate their vision of excellence into reality. As a result, with few exceptions, strong leaders are also good managers.” There are hundreds of books that explain the specific responsibilities of managers in great detail. However, there are three areas of management that involve an exercise of leadership, setting priorities, keeping the system functioning, and setting agendas and making decisions. To add to this discourse, management involves the process of working with and through individuals and groups and other resources to accomplish organizational goals. Leadership, on the

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other hand, is the process of attempting to influence the behavior of any individual or group, regardless of the reason and possibly at the expense of the organization. Alfred North Whitehead said it perhaps the best when talking about how leadership improves an institution. “The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” There cannot be effective leadership absent management skills, and there cannot be effective management absent leadership skills; the two are inextricably intertwined. Yes, leadership is about vision, values, and change. Still, even if it is the act of picking quality managers to surround you, you must be able to support followers in their present before they will agree to follow you to the future. And the routine operations of any organization are not so predictable that managers will not encounter something for which they have not been prepared. When that happens, there must be some leadership skills that enable them to surpass the challenge and get the job done. A word about change and accountability must be included at this point, particularly when leaders are about the business of changing individual people. When a person decides to be different because of his or her interaction with you, you are responsible for what he or she becomes. It is the fear of this accountability that causes too many to shy away from becoming true leaders. Freedom without responsibility benefits no man. Leadership without accountability benefits no change. A word about values and decisions is appropriate at this point. It is important to meet individually with the top administrators who were responsible to you. During monthly one-on-one conversations, talk about vision and values. Decisions are easy . . . if they are aware of the vision and values of the organization. If you are reversing too many of their decisions, they do not have a problem; you do. It is that you are not accurately communicating the vision and values of the school district to them. This is very important as they face critical decision situations in which other participants would become embattled. Don’t have them looking over their shoulder wondering, “Will I get backing on this?” Have them entering into the discussion with the full confidence that, upon appeal, if they operated within the context of the school district’s vision and values, they would get full support. Another important but unintended by-product will result from these meetings. While you are immersed in conversation regarding vision, values, and the school district, you will also be building relationship capital between each other. That becomes very important when the topic of trust between two professionals emerges. A principal of a school is, at once, an instructional leader and the operational manager of his or her school. Those twin responsibilities work to drain

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all of the patience, creativity, planning, and inspirational capacity from his or her being. Truly, principals must be inspirational leaders; they have the unbelievable challenge of promoting a positive image of the future for teachers, students, and those students’ parents. Hope is the most important concept in any group or organization. Principals’ success at that task will be a source of motivation for anyone within their realm of influence. Hope is the most incredible concept. The lack of it, for tens of thousands of prisoners, helped only dozens of German guards herd those people into gas chambers in the concentration camps of World War II. Take away a person’s hope, and you make that person helpless. One must contemplate whether public schools work to erode that hope from too many students. Each and every leader in the school must strive to foster the feeling of hope for any and all who cross the building’s doorstep. Once one agrees to wear the cloak of leadership, he or she must always project the appearance of control and energy. How many times have you heard the grumbling, “This is just one more thing to add to my plate”? While that may be the reality, saying it and acting it out does more to diminish one’s ability to lead than sustain it. Todd Whitaker points out that the principal is the filter for his or her school. He writes that, “If the principal sneezes, the whole school catches a cold.” Principals must be very conscious of their behavior and their language. Their teachers, students, and communities are always watching and listening. Likewise, the term overwhelmed must be extracted from the leader’s vocabulary. Followers look to leaders to always have matters in hand and to have an unlimited supply of energy. So often, they follow the leader’s lead either to the organization’s health or to its detriment. There is a new concept leaking into educational lexicon. It is called decision fatigue. Those who espouse to this thinking feel that decisions made in the morning are much better thought out, more effectively implemented, and more positively evaluated. Decisions rendered in the later hours of the afternoon are more likely to be the opposite. Leaders may do well to heed this thinking and consider ways to be as resourceful in the afternoon as they are in the morning. THEORY AND PRACTICE There are many ways of looking at leadership. One lens through which this is often accomplished is to compare leadership theory and leadership practice. A number of investigators compare leadership using a three-point set of skills: technical (specialized knowledge, tools, and techniques), conceptual

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(ability to see the enterprise as a whole), and human (working with people, ethical dimensions). These were further elaborated on through the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education Standards, the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium Standards, and the American Association for School Administrators Standards for the Superintendency. Ken Blanchard and Paul Hershey developed the Situational Leadership model which aligns leader behaviors with follower readiness. Leader behaviors are grouped into four quadrants: telling, selling, participating, and delegating. As a leader considers which quadrant to enact, he or she provides more or less relationship behavior and task behavior, becoming more or less supportive or directive as the situation and follower readiness requires. Before engaging, the leader assesses the follower’s(followers’) readiness level, which is a combination of ability and willingness. A crucial component of this model is that leaders have to have the capacity to play any of the roles, from very supportive, to very directive, as the situation and the follower readiness level requires. As expected, individuals and groups evolve through a maturation process, and the leader must be constantly assessing that status in order to be effective with this approach. Leaders don’t usually utilize this process but rather resort to their predominant personality when dealing with followers. This becomes particularly troublesome when facing a crisis. In terms of credibility, followers look for the very first response of the leader. It is on that point that the leader’s credibility is strengthened or diminished. The Situational Leadership model was later updated by identifying three skills for leaders: diagnosis, flexibility, and partnering for performance. The quadrants were also modified to directing, coaching, supporting, and delegating. The New York City Leadership Academy developed the Leadership Performance Planning Worksheet for First-Year Principals as a means of having new school-level administrators self-reflect on thirty-seven core behaviors that were organized into nine leadership dimensions: personal behavior, resilience, communication and the context of learning, focus on student performance, situational problem-solving, learning, supervision of instructional and non-instructional staff, management, and technology. Those completing the worksheet are required to react to the core behaviors in each dimension indicating whether they are meeting the standard or approaching it. In addition, they are to provide evidence in three areas: a progress update, areas for improvement, and next steps to be taken. The format, when included as part of a mentoring program, is designed to enhance

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respondents’ assessment of their current leadership standing and while providing a pathway for growth. This support for entry-level administrators is a far cry from the 1970s when neophyte administrators’ training most often was the principal plopping a ten-pound school board policy manual on his or her desk with the directive, “Review this over the weekend.” Sitting board member Kristen Amundson, writing in the American School Board Journal’s September 2000 edition, had the most interesting quote about the relationship between theory and practice. In an article she had penned entitled “What I Wish I’d Known Before I Ran For the Board,” she said, “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice. But, in practice, there is.” How profound this statement is! When applying theories, models, and strategies to real people in real time, the diligent leader must be constantly overseeing their progress. People react in the most imaginative ways to stimulation, often in unpredictable fashion. Followers might not always find the change process as piquant as does the leader. Some advice is appropriate at this point. One point to consider is Know Thyself. Know what your limitations are in terms of the Situational Leadership model. Know what you feel comfortable doing and what causes you pause. Dr. John Goodlad coined the term Obstacle Illusions, a way of describing “speed bumps on the road to success” that could be overcome but, because of leadership’s perception, were assumed to be insurmountable. This could also be a result of Joel Barker’s paradigm paralysis phenomenon. Remember that BOSS spelled backwards is double SOB! Attempt to create a sense of people not working for you but people working with you throughout your administrative career. People do not like to be manipulated; they like to feel important. To the extent that you can create that aura in your workplace, you will see productivity increase. To carry this discussion a bit further, it is fundamental for the leader to be able to lead without appearing entitled. Certainly, there are those in the followership ranks who will question how the leader landed the position, and question the leader’s background and competency. Acting as if you are entitled to the position is likely to throw “fuel on this fire” and burn your tenure out prematurely. Finally, keep your upline informed. Whether it is your board of education president, your director, or your superintendent, do not ever let that individual be surprised. Keeping information, especially controversial developments, from your superior is the best way to shorten the tenure you have at your current position. Be forthcoming, explain meticulously what has happened, and have a couple of options to deal with it. Remember, people who bring problems without solutions have little value to any organization.

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POSITIONAL LEADERSHIP AND PERSONAL LEADERSHIP Try to find a picture of President Franklin Roosevelt on crutches. A gallant leader, who took our country through some of the most trying times in our history, Roosevelt had polio but it was felt to be unpatriotic to take a picture of him as being dependent on a walker. That is a far cry from unkind cartoons of our current president found on the pages of daily newspapers on a regular schedule. What happened? Could it be that people in the most powerful positions in our country committed indiscretions that cheapened the power of that office and compromised its ability to ward off challenges to its position? Who can ever forget the acts of either President Nixon or President Clinton? However, the cut goes much deeper than that. Be it president or police chief, or clergy, or sports star, or any other individual holding some kind of important position, we are too regularly being inundated with acts of infidelity, fiscal impropriety, or some other kind of malfeasance and are quickly asked to excuse the act with a pitiful, “I’m sorry. I apologize to all of those who trusted me,” as if that is sufficient to cover the issue. Leaders must now deal with the reality that the position does not have the strength to carry the credibility in and of itself. Try it some time. Simply say to a teacher, “Follow me; I’m the principal.” Or, as a teacher, say to your students, “Listen to me; I’m the teacher.” Or, as a superintendent say to your public, “Trust me; I’m your superintendent.” You are certain to get a response that will indicate quickly to you that your position, in fact, does not matter. People no longer react to the position; they want to know that the individual in the position can get the job done. That is accomplished more completely by deeds than words. People are also interested in how one obtained the position. Did you have a relative on the board, a confederate in the hiring process, or secure the position through some other dubious means? Even if you did not, there are those who will make it their job to tell others that you did. Gaining the confidence of the followers takes persistent and consistent behavior which results in what is called the leadership quotient. That is, handling matters objectively, carefully, and productively over sufficient time will earn you the right to make an error now and then. If you have not earned that right, your first error may be your last. If you have earned that level of credibility, your followers will excuse you for a misjudgment, just so that another one is not quickly in the offing. The major problem with positional and personal leadership is that, too often, people in positions of leadership don’t act like leaders; they act too much like managers. Too many individual in positions of leadership bellow

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out their convictions during monthly state meetings and then retreat to their districts to do little about which they argued. Why? Upon reflection, this behavior can be explained using the leadership theory and practice paradigm. Local boards of education advertise for superintendent positions with lofty language that requires that candidates possess leadership traits. Those interested in the positions undergo intense paper screenings and interview processes. At each level, the interrogatories are designed to tease leadership postures from the candidates. At some point, one individual is selected as the favored candidate. Then he or she begins to lead. Leading means change; not everyone agrees with the change process, either how it was developed or how it is implemented. People begin to disagree, support wanes, and the once successful candidate now begins to prepare for his or her exit process. The average tenure for the superintendency is less than four years. Most candidates, for good reason, are required to live in the district which hires them. That means a new mortgage. Most are given a three- or four-year contract and acknowledge that they serve at the pleasure of the board of education. Most are at a point in their lives where they have children attending college and have an annual fiscal outlay to preserve that for their children. To be fair, these individuals are more than administrators. They are spouses, parents, and citizens facing a multitude of responsibilities that tax (financially and otherwise) them daily. Make one false move and everything could come crumbling down, for both them and for those who rely on their ability to produce for their home, their security, and their future. There is, however, a different strategy, one that can lengthen the tenure possibility until retirement. Faced with this dilemma, many people in positions of leadership are pressed to avoid the tough choices, to work to compromise more than lead, to slide back into a comfortable management style rather than take the chance to lead. It is hard to blame them. This is one reason causing the real shortage in our public schools. It isn’t a shortage of teachers or a dearth of administrators. It is a vacuum of leadership. Anyone who knows anything about physics knows that a vacuum fills itself. If the leadership does not come from within the educational community, it will and has come from without. Governors’ taskforces, state business commissions, and numerous other noneducation groups have deluged the educational institution with a plethora of models, strategies, and advice, most of which has caused more harm than good for our schools and our students. Still it comes. Why? Because the leadership vacuum continues to grow. Only when members of the educational community acknowledge and deal with the need to nurture both the professional and personal needs of

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successful leadership candidates, to help create an environment in which change agents are given more professional stability by policy boards, and a culture in which leaders can make difficult decisions without sacrificing their positions, will leadership flourish in our public schools. When these concerns are eradicated, the shortages of people who choose to work in public education, at all levels, will also be gone. MODELING It is important to work two jobs, the job you have and the job you want. What does this mean? First, you have to be competent in what you are doing now. Ask this of teachers, “If the last class you taught today was your interview for this position, would we still hire you?” That means you have to always be better the next class than the class you just finished. Perfection is a direction, not a place; you never, ever get there. Also, what are your aspirations for your career? If you want to become an assistant principal, what experiences can you collect prior to that first interview that will present you as being competent and prepared for the position? Have you volunteered to help with scheduling? Are you interested in the budgeting process? Have you served on any teacher interview teams? Have you volunteered for the school improvement team? There are numerous opportunities for you to learn more about the operation of a school, all of which would require your time and talent. Yes, your time. This is a pay-off and trade-off choice point in your career. How much time are you willing to spend preparing yourself for that interview and eventual position before it arrives? As we all know, luck is when opportunity meets preparation. Be ready. Long ago, there was a concept known as the Peter Principle. The basic concept of this principle was that everyone was eventually promoted to his or her level of incompetence. The worst predicament you want to find yourself in is to be promoted to a position for which you are not ready. Work two jobs, the job you have and the job you want. That will make you a more attractive applicant when an opportunity presents itself and put you in a position where your career will be more fulfilling. One of the most difficult challenges facing new administrators is the transformation they must make from specialist to generalist. Most will have come from the ranks of teachers, in some specific content area. However, once in the administrative position, they must become more than capable in all content areas of the school. If they are to have credibility as an evaluator of content, as one developing professional development, as one who has a sense

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of what new curriculum is to overtake the school, they now must be skillful in all areas of curriculum in that school. One question they must be willing to confront, perhaps from a grouchy tenth-grade biology teacher is, “Who do you think you are to give me advice about how to teach biology? When was the last time you taught science?” That is an okay question for the teacher to ask and hits at the core of the need to be credible in all areas of the school. How best to accomplish this? First, become a member of as many educational organizations as you can. The four major content areas are important as are research organizations, staff development organizations, policy organizations, administrative organizations, and any other affiliation that can be helpful in keeping you “ahead of the curve.” Participating in professional development is also very important for two reasons. First, you can never evaluate any program in the school effectively and give teachers advice if they know more about it than do you. You will likely come across as hackneyed and ill-prepared. As such, you will soon find your credibility lacking and your tenure cut short. Also, symbolically, if the professional development is important, you will be there. Anything that is worth spending teachers’ time on is also worth the administrators’ time. If they see you there, and participating, they will know it is important. How you participate is very important. Don’t dominate. Listen and offer suggestions strategically. If you want to have others participate and buy into the idea, listen to how they attend to it. Remember that teachers have two real important questions to be answered whenever faced with a change in their operations. They will not ask these questions during an open meeting but, if you watch and listen closely, and follow up with them privately, you can make them feel much more comfortable with the process. The questions are: Will I have a job, and will my job be different? Both are very threatening and will cause some to undermine whatever change you are hoping to bring. Identify the resisters, meet with them, respond to their questions honestly, and hopefully they will come to your side when implementing the process. Managing time is of the utmost importance for successful educational leaders. Nobody ever needs just a second! It is easy to overschedule yourself. If that happens, you find yourself having to decide whose time you should violate, the individual in conversation with you in your office, or the next customer, waiting not-so-patiently in the outer office. Doctors and dentists always have their offices always filled with people in waiting. They purposely overschedule because any time not seeing a patient is time not making money. That’s not a sound practice for educational leaders. Add some unscheduled time to your daily schedule, allow for more time than people requested, keep people focused on the task at hand (with some opportunity for relationship building), and be explicit when the meeting is

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completed (offering a review of the conversation, identifying any tasks to be completed, who would complete them, and when the timeline in which they would be accomplished). In addition, always designate one day a week to be completely unscheduled. It will be a day that you can use to catch up on the overflow of your calendar or use it to work on your visibility in the school or school district. Everyone’s time is sacred to them but they don’t mind wasting that critical resource for others. It is leadership’s responsibility to be efficient stewards of everyone’s time. That also helps all operations run much more smoothly. Everyone gets the same twenty-four hours in a day, not a second more to Jill, not a second less to Harry. How is it that some people seem to get so much more done than others? Is it the way they manage their time, reduce distractions, focus, and learn and practice the art of management? We have sufficient time to complete the tasks that we feel are important. We may not be able to accomplish everything in our twenty-four hours, but those items on the top of our priority list are sure to be completed. One final point about time: begin meetings on time and end them early, and everyone will love you. Hold tardy people accountable, and don’t allow the agenda to drag. Administrators are not omnipresent. We must rely on others to get the work done on a routine basis. Tom Peters, in In Search of Excellence, wrote, “When we put on the hat of management for the first time, we give up honest work for the rest of our lives. We don’t answer the telephone; we don’t teach the students (paraphrasing here); we don’t cook the food; we don’t do anything that is really helpful to the organization. The only thing we have left is to help those doing the real work.” How true this is. Hire quality people and support them. You will see productivity at an all-time high. There is more to this, especially in the schoolhouse. We must move people from compliance to commitment. We have to have their buy-in as we move from one initiative to the next. The way to do this is to have them agree that the change is needed, be transparent on the upsides and downsides from the beginning, and give them a say in how best to remedy the problems. So doing is more likely to create that synergy so necessary for continuous improvement. Also, it is important to make the status quo more uncomfortable than the change. Often, simply sharing data will help with this. When confronted with the challenges of the status quo, people often look for a plan. Have a proposal, offer advice, and seek input. Make it their plan, not your plan. Modeling is a very important part of leadership behavior. Leaders, especially when confronted with a crisis, must be very careful about how they respond. First, don’t allow a situation to be more important than it deserves to be. People will use every tactic imaginable to try to run their issue up your

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hierarchy. They will use emotion; they will use time; they will use political pressure. Don’t give in to these strategies. Be objective, be fair, and be timely with your response. If you fold and succumb to this pressure, rest assured, you will get more of it. It will come with every situation that arises. Once it becomes known that you will respond to the loudest squeaking wheel, your school will sound like a school bus with no grease on any axle. And you will regret it. Thomas Jefferson gives us some good advice on this point as well. Said he, “Nothing gives one person so much advantage over another as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.” How true that is in a place called school. Also, understand that leadership is lonely. One principal recounted how, during the first week of his first high school principalship, a couple of males on the staff invited him out for a cold beverage on Friday after school. He did not go. He figured he was in for a number of tests. He pondered how the rest of the staff would react if they knew he was having a drink with several members of the staff and he next had to render a decision that went those few staff members’ way. Even if it was to rightfully go their way, you can hear the buzzing in the faculty room, can’t you? Be careful about affiliations. You have enough to worry about. Don’t get victimized by the appearance of impropriety. Another word of caution. If you never hear bad news, you have an image problem. That is, people are afraid that you will “shoot the messenger.” No organization, certainly no school, is perfect. Unfortunate situations develop. It is important that people in your school feel comfortable about telling you about these matters and feel comfortable sharing with you their ideas about how the school is running. That ethos is built upon trust and credibility and a sense that you, as the leader, will listen to what they say. A word about courage. Each year as principal, send out an anonymous survey to your staff asking how they feel about how you are doing. Give them a Likert Scale (even numbered to force them into either agree, strong agree, disagree, or strong disagree) to measure your performance regarding sustaining your vision, the management of the school, instructional leadership, communication, student behavior, and the like. There should be room for comments as warranted. Count up the numbers, place an average by each criterion, list the comments, and talk about this during the next faculty meeting. It will be, at times, eye-opening. Sometimes how you will feel about the job you are doing will not be how they feel. That means it will be time to deal with the cognitive dissonance that develops. It will be interesting the length to which some teachers go to disguise their penmanship on the surveys. They will not be comfortable with rating their principal. Afterwards, tell them how you will

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attempt to improve on the categories on which they rate you lowest. You will gain some respect. To make this work you will have to deal with your own cognitive dissonance, the invalidity of perceptions you hold about how you are doing. When confronted with the reality of how the teachers, secretaries, and custodians look at your performance, you have three choices. You can simply dismiss their perception as incorrect, you can change your perception to agree with the perception they have, or you can accept how they see you and use their feedback regarding how you are currently operating and work to make changes to better align your perception with their perception. Choose the third option. It important to nurture a productive relationship with the leadership of the teachers’ union. Schedule regular meetings with the union president or building representative. There are two reasons for this. First, it allows you to work on your relationship. Also, it allows you to deal with matters before they explode into crises. Here is an example of how this may play out. A superintendent enjoyed observing all first-year teachers. In order to preserve their planning time, he felt it would be a good idea to invite them to meet with him before school. They all agreed. During one of his regular meetings with the union president, she said, “We have a problem.” He asked, “Is that so. What is it?” She responded, “It’s you.” Dumbfounded, he asked for an explanation. She detailed how first-year teachers felt they were being pressured to get to school early to meet with him for pre-observation and post-observation conferences. “But,” he stammered, “I always ask them and they say yes.” Not one to worry about his ego, she retorted, “Look (she may have been thinking ‘stupid’ but she did not say it), you are the superintendent and they are first-year teachers. What do you think they are going to say?” Talk about a hit on his cognitive dissonance! He thought he was doing the teachers a favor by not usurping their planning time, but they felt he was forcing them to surrender more of their private time. Absent the regular meetings between the superintendent and the union president and the relationship quotient that enabled the union official to be honest, the superintendent could have ended up with a much worse problem. Two words come to mind when thinking about how leadership is best modeled in a public school. They are our and the, two seemingly innocuous adjectives that matter little in conversation. Yet they do . . . and quite a bit. They speak of ownership. You see, there is a big difference between the school and our school, between the students and our students. The means the school and the students could belong to anyone; our means they belong to me. It means I have a connection; it means I have ownership; it means I have

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responsibility; it means I care. That is the distinction, a small generality but a major distinction. Values, time, and behavior are important to discuss here. The General Epistle of James, Second Chapter, Verse 18, reads, “Yea, a man may say, Thou has faith and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” Believe this deeply. A leader’s values are demonstrated much more by what he does and less by what he says. If you truly believe in something, people will see you doing more about it and talking less about it. Be cynical of people who talk about how much they care. You should be able to see that caring and hear less talking about it. Think of this point. If the local police came into your school tomorrow and handcuffed you and took you downtown, saying you had been accused of caring, could they get enough evidence to get a conviction? Would they be able to interview witnesses who would say, “I saw her do this. I know she cares.” Or could they get another witness to say, “I heard him say this. I’m sure he cares.” What we do with our time and how we behave shows and tells people what is important to us. Let our faith show through our works. Responding to taxing situations with grace is another important way leaders may model behavior. Followership looks immediately to leaders in a time of crisis. That very first action you take will determine how people view you. You cannot “fly off the handle” and return tomorrow to ask for forgiveness. It is easy to lead when the waters of the ocean are smooth; it is something quite different when the whitecaps are waving. This is very important, especially for those who spend most of their careers nurturing and encouraging staff and students in schools with higher rates of poverty. One administrator can remember, one Sunday morning in church, when his minister shared with the congregation about how churches were not museums for the saints but rather hospitals for the sinners. He reflected on that for our work in education. Schools are not museums for the gifted; they are hospitals for the broken, the poor, and the needy. As such, responding to the “baggage” that often comes to those schools takes both leadership and gracefulness. To move this concept from theory to practice, always have a rocking chair in your office. If an individual arrives at your door with a disturbing matter and a mind full of emotion, offer the chair, excuse yourself to complete another task for several minutes, always keeping an eye on the speed with which each rock takes place. When you feel the tactile sensory experience has drained some of the emotion, return to the individual and have your discussion. This is always better than confronting an emotionally challenged person immediately. At times, have a bowl of lollipops to offer as well. It is very

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difficult to be confrontational when rocking in the chair and sucking on a lollipop. The final piece would be adding a banjo to the mix. That would complete the picture. After all, how could someone playing a banjo, rocking in a chair, and enjoying a lollipop continue to be angry? TAKING A BULLET The need for leadership’s best modeling comes when situations turn out badly, very badly. How will leadership respond? Who will be blamed? What form of consequences will be meted out to the guilty party? How will damages be repaired? Looking for guilt and seeking to blame are foolhardy actions of leadership. Carefully inspecting the process that developed to produce the calamity and seeing exactly where the problem arose can increase the chances that it will not happen again. Meeting individually with the parties involved in the process to get their impressions of the issue is also helpful. People will make mistakes. Often those mistakes occur when they are taking risks, venturing into new territory where uncertainty is likely to spring up at any time. Or, those miscues arise when people have too much to do and work so rapidly to meet deadlines that they have not the time to ensure accuracy with respect to a project. There is a third, and more sinister, reason for mistakes. Sometimes people err because they want to: they don’t want an initiative to be successful, they want to sabotage a leader, or they want revenge on the organization for some reason. Dealing with an individual in this state of mind is much different than the first two reasons for errors. When the leader reports to a higher authority regarding a problem in the organization, a problem for which he is responsible, it is crucial that he assume that responsibility. One can delegate authority; he cannot delegate responsibility. It is important for the leader to “take a bullet” for the staff who report to him or her who may have caused the issue. In so doing, he or she will gain the respect of both those above and below. And, the leader can create a comfortable culture in the school or school district where people will know they will be supported. Problems can be great learning experiences. Working together, leadership and staff can create conditions to ensure that the error will not be replicated and that service will improve. However, with the individual who intentionally causes problems, leadership should meet with that person, attempt to uncover the motivation for his or her actions, and take steps to alter them. If this is not possible, the only choice remaining is to extricate that person from the school or school system.

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COMMUNICATION Possibly the most important basic skill is one that seldom gets attention in school reform initiatives or in school leadership preparation curriculum. The lack of prowess with this talent is clearly evident in the often minor and sometimes major irritations in the family and costly mistakes in our business transactions. Education is not immune to these pratfalls. It is crucial to not confuse the message with the meaning. During graduate classes, students have a three-minute and fourteen-second break. “What does that mean to you?” they are asked. They struggle to respond. “It should mean that time is important,” is the preferred response The most basic forms of communication, writing, talking, and listening, take place an untold number of times for an individual each day. The fact is, people may have adequately mastered the fields of writing and talking but have truly “turned a deaf ear” to the art of listening. We simply don’t hear well. There is a difference between listening and hearing. The former has you only taking in the auditory stimulation; the latter has you taking in the auditory stimulation, working it through your filters, and acting on it. Concentration may be a part of it. We are so busy formulating our response that we miss much of what we’re being told. We miss the non-verbal communication which is taking place, failing to note the body language which accompanies the speaking. Tone often changes the very meaning of the spoken word. The same group of words, arranged in the same sequence, but delivered with a different tone, will have a vastly different intent. Failure to tune in to how what is being said is delivered will lead to miscommunication. Our perspective may get in the way of our understanding. While it may be true that perspective is reality for the strong willed, that is the very trait which may taint our understanding of the spoken word. Our perception of the individual delivering the message or our perception of our role in the situation may all contribute to a defect in the communication process. Compounding the problem is the fact that a student of linguistics may readily point out that our native tongue is not the easiest to understand. Why, for instance, are not Houston, Texas, and Houston, Delaware, pronounced the same? How about Newark, Delaware, and Newark, New Jersey? Homonyms drive us crazy as well. Taking words out of context, as a faulty listener is prone to do, will distort the meaning of the sentence and impair the intent of the speaker’s message. While syntax, the arrangement of words as elements in a sentence to show their relationship, may aid the listener in discovering the true meaning of the speaker, it could also contribute to misunderstanding if the entire passage is not heard.

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It is not unusual for six people to have that many different interpretations of the same speech delivered to the same half dozen people in the same room at the same time by the same speaker. Is it not confusing that we need newscasters to tell us what the president said, often in conflicting views, just seconds after we heard the same State of the Union Address delivered? You can’t do it alone. To communicate needs more than one person, one to talk and one to listen. But, more importantly, one must also hear. That takes concentration. To listen and to hear is a critical basic skill that no leader in education should be without. THE DISTANCE OF LEADERSHIP Leadership and credibility go hand in hand. One way for an individual to learn about, know, and appreciate another is through personal contact. Too often, the personal contact is what separates leaders from their followers. When we get to know an individual, to understand why he or she acts, why he or she decides the way he or she does, we can put so much more faith in that person. On the other side of this discussion is the leader. How can the leader establish the multitude of personal relationships with his or her followers so as to earn their trust? A strategy of remembering people was one of President Bill Clinton’s major strengths. When he met you, you were never forgotten. He could recall people from meetings held years prior. And, they were not necessary formal meetings; they could have been social gatherings. Just remembering people’s names is important. That is an art and can be more useful than most people think. It was once said that nothing sounds sweeter to us than the sound of our own name. Perhaps that is why listening is so important. Sometimes people say, “Fine. Thank you,” before being asked how they are. It could have been said, “You look like crap,” and the response would still have been, “Fine. Thank you. How are you?” We know when people are not paying attention to us. It hurts and we never really forgive them for it. If someone asks you how your weekend was, he had better have about seven minutes to listen. A lot happens in a weekend. Does the individual asking the question really want to know? Is, in fact, the question being asked while he is walking away? What message does that send? Making personal connections with followers is a fundamental task for leaders. It takes time; it takes energy; it takes effort. The bigger the organization, the more challenging this can be. However, it can pay off dividends in the leadership quotient account. People really want to see you, their leader. They

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don’t want to see the position being the leader. Personal leadership always trumps positional leadership. LEADERSHIP AND LONELINESS A sad irony of leadership is that the higher one travels up the formal hierarchy in a school system and the more crucial the decisions become, the less resources that individual has to call upon to assist with the decision-making process. Leadership can be lonely. As a teacher, you can count upon hundreds of colleagues in your immediate district, call upon the support of the teacher union, and utilize talents of untold friends and associates. As a school-level administrator, that safety net begins to shrink, unfortunately at the same time as you lose the security of tenure and a contract. Administrators mostly serve at the pleasure of the board. One school district had its administrative team on monthly contracts! That’s correct . . . monthly contracts! Needless to say, there were a lot of resignations after a year of that experience. Moving from the school administrative ranks through the district office and eventually to a superintendent’s position causes this situation to become more acute. The decisions are more far-reaching and critical and too often fueled by emotion; the job security grows more tenuous; and the resources upon which you may draw nearly evaporate. One must be very creative in order to make quality and ethical decisions in this kind of support vacuum. Compounding this situation is the fact that many people like individuals in leadership positions to suffer. Perhaps it is because of the opulent lifestyles of the “rich and famous” or exaggerations of behavior on the part of the leader’s predecessor. The “rank and file” will offer up spirited complaints about the size of the office, the make of the car (perhaps even the fact that the leader has a car), the number of people counted in the district office staff, and so on. No feature of the leader’s experience is off-limits. Certainly the lightning rod can be the salary and benefit package. Notwithstanding the fact that a school system is often the largest, most expensive and complicated business in the community, far be it that that organization’s leader be compensated on a level with similar positions in the private sector. How often has the cry, “I’m paying your salary,” been echoed off the walls of the board meeting room during an open debate about some highly regarded topic? School leaders are mostly likely to operate “on the cheap.” They travel as inexpensively as they can, they hold their office staffs to the lowest level possible while still trying to maintain an effective organization, and they work long hours, days, and weeks, probably driving their compensation to the minimum wage level. Still, the critics pound the waste drum.

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Ask those critics to deliver examples and they most likely will grow silent. FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY Freedom without responsibility benefits no man. Leadership, whether it is positional or personal, implies a considerable level of freedom, of options. Consider the freedom of choice, freedom from the conveyance of protocols customarily employed within a system, and other elements of independence which have the ability to lift the encumbrances of management. Whether that liberty is the result of design by the position of leadership or the result of an attitude oft taken by a natural leader, it means that there is a plethora of directions the individual so freed or so determined may follow. If those directions, those options, are not considered carefully, an uncomfortable level of recklessness may follow. Does that mean that there is no such feeling as absolute freedom? Is man forever destined to captivity to some degree by social norms, institutional mores, and organizational protocols? One would have to argue that, to the extent that the leader would behave in such a way as to contribute to the harm of those who would chose to follow him, those constraints would apply. The responsibility of leadership always trumps the freedom that goes with it. So it also is with power. As soon as the leader begins to enjoy the power, he has taken the first step to having it removed. Another way of looking at it would be to agree that leadership is the quintessential model for self-discipline, that stage of being where the individual must be able to discern the difference between what he or she would like to do and what he or she should do and take the appropriate action. An individual’s use of the opportunity of leadership solely for the purpose of self-aggrandizement is not leadership at all but rather a pitiful example of the lowest kind of narcissist behavior. Followership will quickly realize this and deal with the culprit in a swift and efficient manner. Freedom without responsibility benefits no man. COVEY’S CIRCLES There is no shortage of territory to be debated in public education. In nearly every aspect of life, from economics to politics, to values, to you name it, leadership has much from which to choose. There is a difference between

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being concerned about an issue and being able to influence that matter in a way you desire. Stephen Covey calls this dynamic The Circle of Influence and The Circle of Concern. Are there situations that cause you concern yet you are unable to make a change in them? Certainly. One might argue that the description of an intellectually disabled human being might be worrying too much over which he has no control. Think about it. What would be your contributions to solving global warming? Surely, you can drive a hybrid and recycle some of the waste in your home, but that would be about it. You would not be contributing much to help reduce mankind’s carbon footprint on the globe. So, continuously worrying about global warming while having little opportunity to change it can result in a sense of paranoia for you. Really, all one can do is trust the leaders in charge to deal with global warming and do so efficiently. However, if you want to expand your influence, you may want to volunteer for a governmental taskforce that may influence state or national policy aimed at correcting global warming. In so doing, you can realign your Circle of Influence so it more closely matches your Circle of Concern. That will give you more balance in your circles and return you to a more healthy state intellectually. Let’s move this to a discussion about public education. How much influence do we really have relating to what takes place in children’s homes? Educators regularly complain about not having sufficient support from parents, that parents do not attend meetings, about parents not reading teachers’ notes, about parents not returning materials, and on and on. What control do teachers really have in this situation? This is their Circle of Concern. In what situation do teachers have total control? If you answered their classrooms while their students are there, give yourself a pat on the back. Teachers control virtually everything that happens in their classrooms. This is their Circle of Influence. Do educators spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about a matter over which we traditionally have no control? Yes. To bring the two circles closer to congruency, educators may get themselves involved in state or national organizations whose goals are to support family development, to identify ways of making family life more functional and nurturing for children. In so doing, those educators would know they are having an impact on a challenge facing educators across the system, the lack of family support. Also, they would not be bemoaning an issue over which they had little control but would be taking steps to improve it. And they would be helping themselves become more emotionally, psychologically, and physically stable. That would be good for them and good for their students.

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SIGNATURE STAMPS It may seem like a small matter, yet it can evolve into something much greater. Think of the symbolic nature of the signature stamp. For followers it means that you are really too busy to know and understand that which will have your signature . . . in some form. It means that you really didn’t take the time to consider that diploma a graduate will receive. It means that you have no idea what is in that communication people may feel you authored. It means that you have had limited interactions with that budget report that contains your signature. It means these documents may have never fallen under your eyes! Yes, fully committing to your signature on each and every document does have a price: time. It takes time to thoroughly review all of these items on a regular basis. But, think about why our signatures are required. They are an indication that we endorse that which carries our signature. It seems oxymoronic to have our signature on something that we, in fact, did not even consider. What if the diploma has errors on it; what if the communication contains a message we did not intend; what if that budget report is not balanced? What then is our response to people who should rightly point out, “Well, your signature is on it!” Electronic signatures are no better. In fact, when you get a communication addressed specifically to you, with an electronic signature on it, don’t you find it insulting? Here is a communication created to personalize the experience when, in fact, it exposes the fact that its creator cannot spare the time to personally endorse it with his hand. Never use a signature stamp or an electronic signature. If your name is to go on it, demand of yourself that your eyes and your brain have considered it. This may mean getting to the office very early in the morning to review mail, reports, and budgets. That is a small price to pay for gaining a deeper and richer understanding of the workings of your school system. Leadership is about vision and modeling and priorities. Following your signature with your understanding is a very important part of those processes. DEALING WITH THE MEDIA Few developments in the day of an educational leader may be as baffling as receiving the call that some member of the media would like to conduct an interview regarding some facet of the school’s operations. This should not be the case. Here are a few suggestions that will improve your ability to deal with microphones, cameras, and touchy inquiries.

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First, realize that the function of news media has evolved from reporting the news to making the news. Reporters are sent out to capture the most intriguing angle of a situation, find it first, liven it up, and get it on the air or in the paper before anyone else can do the same. This increases either readership or radio or television ratings, stimulates ad sales, and makes money. What’s an educational leader to do? As best as you can, build relationships with all of the media representatives covering your school or school system. Include all print and electronic reporters. Meet with them one-on-one to build that relationship and create some semblance of trust. Understand that those individuals move from position to position more rapidly than superintendents. Some only hold their positions for a couple of months. Every time a new reporter is on your beat, meet with him or her. Explain a little about your school system; tell the reporter how to pronounce difficult names of people, towns, or other areas of the community. This will help him or her not sound silly when making a report. Send out weekly press releases to everyone on your media list. Get the positive out in an unyielding and consistent pattern. Participate in public service message campaigns. Newspapers only have so much space and radio and television news people have only so much time but, if you are persistent with this, they will soon get to know you. When you have official press releases to get out, be sensitive to the deadlines of the weekly newspapers, lest they are always a week behind the daily editors. Time your mailings of these, and your weekly positive notes, in a way so that weekly and daily papers, and the electronic media, will all have equal shot at the timing of the release. It is helpful, when building that trust with individual reporters, to talk with them about reporting your positive news when you can. In return, promise that they will never get a “No comment” response from you. Always want to give them something they need, a credible response about what may be a sensitive situation in the school. Talk about the limitations on some information, such as personnel matters, and other information. Still, give them a quote they can use. When they call asking for an interview, prepare for it. Have a professionally prepared and detailed packet about the matter with which they may leave. Think about where you want to interview conducted and what will be in the background. Think about who should be answering the questions. Different school systems have different protocols regarding this. Will students be involved? Understand that, on the way to your interview, other developments may impede the media team from being on time or arriving at all. Sometimes a fire, an accident, or other news development may move your story down their list of priorities for the day. If that happens, call the reporter and see if he or she would like to reschedule.

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Remember that no comment is ever really off the record. In a court of law, an attorney may get a favorable opinion about his or her objection to the comments or questions of the opposing attorney, but can that ruling remove the comments or questions from the minds of the jurors? Likewise, if you said it, it can be used. Be measured with your speech. It is less likely that you will be misquoted than quoted out of context. The longer you talk, the more likely the reporter will marry a comment you made at the beginning of your discussion with a point you made at the end to create an entirely different meaning. Be informative, be entertaining, and be seated. Brevity, when dealing with the media, is crucial. Remember, they only have so much space and so much time so make every second count and limit those seconds. It does not pay to argue with the media. It’s not a good idea to get into a letter writing fight with people who buy their ink by the barrel. Remember that the editors control what is written or said and how it is written or said. Offend them and you may be in for a difficult time. Practice, practice, practice. It is amusing how ordinary people can befuddle their words simply because a microphone is placed in front of them. Get used to speaking deliberately, making proper eye contact, maintaining appropriate posture, and all of the other bits of advice you received in Public Speaking 101. Don’t forget about enunciation and tone. So often it is not what we say but how we say it that makes all the difference. Finally, expect a reaction from colleagues, staff members, even family. They will see you on television, hear you on the radio, or read about you in the newspaper. It the report goes well, remember humility; if that doesn’t work, remember grace. Be humble in victory and graceful in defeat. NO MORE ORIGINAL THINKING In order to satisfy those thinkers who consider whether a model or process you have may be viable, the overarching direction is always that it must be a researched-based initiative. The questions are predictable. What model are you replicating? What adjustments must you make in order for it to work in your situation? What comes to mind is another query. Is all of the original thinking gone? Can there be no more rudimental ideas? Is professional education creativity limited to simply tweaking someone else’s concept? Who better to contemplate and shape an intervention to the very challenging and specific problem with which you are working . . . than you? It is offensive and defeating to force the creative minds and thoughtful thinking of local educators into a box that limits the scope of their options

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in dealing with problems unique to their scenarios. Those who approve or disapprove funding and support for these efforts would do well to spend some time in the arena of those dealing with the challenge before rejecting it out of hand because it did not look sufficiently like someone else’s project in another context. THE BEST MODEL FOR EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP GRADUATE COURSES What is the best model for preparing students for graduate-level educational leadership courses? There are typically three models for so doing: face-toface, total online instruction, and a combination of the two, a hybrid approach. The explosion of online universities and the droves of students flocking to online courses is an indication that there is both an interest on the part of the customers and an opportunity for universities to make a profit by succumbing to the seductive nature of total electronic delivery of the content. When considering how best to prepare students for a career in educational leadership, which will carry them through a principalship, district office positions, and a possible superintendency, does a graduate experience completed solely through the use of technology prepare them for the challenges that await them? Students often head to the online offerings due to their flexibility. Are the terms convenient and effective synonyms? Certainly not. While students may be able to juggle their graduate-level responsibilities with the demands of work and family life through a completely online schedule, does a graduate-level experience completed absent face-to-face interactions with a professor and classmates serve them well when they look to enter an arena where the inability to deal with relationships, read body language, respond to a variety of emotions, take people through negotiations which will enhance conflict resolution, and a wealth of other interpersonal responsibilities has short-circuited more than one neophyte school administrator? Another important role of educational leaders is the ability to set priorities and balance multiple requirements on one’s time. Certainly, being a principal or superintendent is not convenient. These administrators live by the oxymoronic mantra, “My schedule is a series of interruptions.” Being omnipresent in the school while completing all of the paperwork, observing a teacher while an irate parent demands an immediate meeting, attending all of the after-school functions while being part of a family, and, yes, taking graduate courses while serving as an educator are all part of the formula. Perhaps policymakers and those in positions of decision-making at the higher education level should consider what Stephen Covey often postulated

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with one of his Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, “Begin with the end in mind.” Most vision and mission statements at the university level speak to the matter of doing the very best to prepare students for the future, of giving them the skills necessary to be successful, and of doing this in a caring and nurturing way. Denying graduate students the opportunity for any face-to-face encounters robs them of some of the most important experiences they will need to further their careers in education. And, while it may be possible to demonstrate virtual caring and nurturing, it is doubtful that those feelings will be remembered as well as a wink of the eye, a pat on the back, or a smile on the face. YOU BE GONE It may seem an unusual conversation to have in a book about educational leadership, but moving on is an essential component of the dialogue. The truth is, whatever your position, you are in it only temporarily. It may be that you chose to move on or it may be that you are moved on. It makes no difference. Careful consideration to those circumstances will make the transition much smoother for the individual swept away in it. There are basically five ways to transition out of a position: promotion, transfer, termination, resignation, and death. Death speaks for itself. Promotion is by choice. Transfer and resignation may be by choice or by force, and termination is always by force. If by choice, your transition out typically is the result of promotion. It may be for other reasons as well such as location closer to home, different work environment, or any other factors you find more suitable. If you are transferred against your will, there could be diverse reasons for that as well. You may have a particular skill that fits in better at another position, you may be experiencing a personality conflict with someone at your current position, or you may not have a talent necessary are your current location. Consider the reasons you may be terminated. They fall into two categories, controllable and uncontrollable. Some of the reasons may fall into both categories. Incompetence, insubordination, troubles with your budgeting ability, challenges with your personnel, a change in the district’s values, politics, and financial challenges with the district are just a few. The astute educational leader minimizes the reasons for which he or she will be terminated by maximizing his or her skill level and avoiding the situations which may leave even the impression of impropriety. If one point is assured about educational leadership, it is that it is temporary. An oxymoronic statement it is and a truism in reality for those who face it.

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A LEARNING COMMUNITY If school leadership could accomplish one goal, hopefully it would be to achieve what Peter Senge describes at a learning community, a school where people work together to create the results they desire, think and work in truly innovative ways, and are continuously learning how to learn together. Would that not be a wonderful play to go each day? SCENARIO 1 After nine months of painstaking work, Principal Justin Kredible has guided the stakeholders of his school through a process which has produced the following vision statement: “We believe that all students can achieve at a very high level; we believe that the diversity that exists in our student body is a strength; we believe that involving our students’ parents in the educational experience is of paramount importance.” This vision statement is recited at the beginning of each month faculty meeting in this, the first year of its use. Kredible has worked hard with his school improvement team to design and implement plans for enhancing the performance of the school’s students even as the level of curricular rigor has continued to increase. Walking by the faculty room one morning in February, Kredible hears teachers Stan Doff and Wes Stern talking about the high level of poverty at his school. “Our free and reduced meal rate is nearing 72 percent,” Doff says, “No wonder a lot of our students can’t meet this new standard. What do they expect us to do?” Stern responds, “And, trying to get their parents to support us is impossible. They come up with every excuse to avoid parent conferences and other school functions. It’s a lost cause.” Kredible notices that three other teachers are in the faculty room, Rose Bud, Sunny Day, and Ryan Oceros. They are within hearing distance of the conversation, and he notices that Oceros looks at him, turns away quickly, and says something to Bud and Day. Kredible quickly realizes that he is being confronted with a school culture matter in this scenario. He knows he must deal with this. What is his best course of action? How and when should he deal with it? SCENARIO 2 Art Skool had just arrived at his office on Monday morning. When he left on Friday, all was well at his high school: there were no major issues with

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student behavior, attendance, or academics; the school was well-cleaned and safe; and community relations were trending in a positive manner. His secretary, Chick Legg, said he had a call. On the line was Ida Beest, reporter from the state’s largest daily newspaper. Skool and Beest had a fairly workable relationship, not always agreeing on everything but able to talk through challenging issues. Beest said she had received an anonymous call on Sunday afternoon, one that had caught her interest. She wanted to follow up on it. The caller suggested that one of the school’s more popular teachers, I. M. Hert, had received an unsatisfactory evaluation and was possibly facing a termination hearing. While Beest had not talked directly with Hert, she was asking if Skool knew anything about this and if she, Beest, had permission to talk with Hert at school. Skool told Beest that he was not able to react to personnel matters and that, if Beest wanted to talk with Hert, she could during Hert’s planning time but she had to be respectful of the fact that Hert would have to be in class at his appointed time. It was at this point that Beest added that the caller sounded like a student and that the caller indicated that a student protest might be in the offing. Did Skool know anything about that? Skool replied that he did not but added that it was early Monday morning. Beest requested permission to talk with students on campus, which Skool denied. Skool knew that Beest could position herself just off school grounds and talk with students as they either entered or exited school that day. Skool made a suggestion. “How about if I look into this and call you back early today? Would that work? That way I would be able to give you a much better response.” “That’s fine,” Beest replied. “My editor wants a story on his desk by today’s deadline. That’s at 1:00 this afternoon.” Skool reflected on the developments of the last month during which Hert had been alleged to have been in a compromising relationship with a student. The investigation had been completed just four days ago and the findings were that the inappropriate relationship had been ongoing for about two months. What is Skool’s plan of action in the short term; what is he to do in the long term? SCENARIO 3 Schedule development at the high school level is a complicated process. Typically, in January of each school year, students are surveyed regarding

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courses they would like to have for the following fall. Estimates are made regarding failures, projections are tabulated regarding prerequisite courses, and an analysis of the faculty’s background and experiences for teaching various courses is conducted. So it was for Anywhere High School one year . . . or was supposed to be. District Secondary Schools’ Director Graham Crakker had outlined the process for high school principal Hank Eie during the pre-school job-target conferences. Eie had just been hired the previous July. During his late-November mid-term job-target conference Crakker had asked Eie how the scheduling was going, and Eie had responded that the plan had been formulated and the guidance counselors were presented with a timetable to implement the scheduling model. All seemed well at Anywhere High School . . . until the superintendent Dr. Stan Lee called Crakker into his office in late April to discuss several troubling calls he had received from parents of rising seniors. The parents complained that their children needed certain courses during their senior year to support their efforts at getting into preferred colleges and universities. And, despite their conversations with Eie, nothing appeared to be happening regarding scheduling at Anywhere High School. Crakker, after a grueling meeting with his superintendent, met with Eie. Eie complained that counselors Barry Err and Mary Land had experienced trouble implementing the schedule. They were required to attend a counseling workshop that had stripped them of two days of school in late January. After that, school had been closed for a week because of snow. They were behind, way behind, in terms of the required timetable. Crakker listened thoughtfully. He knew he had to get back to his superintendent, who would not be happy with this development. He also knew he had to get this scheduling process back on a timetable that would satisfy the school’s responsibilities for its staff and students, particularly the seniors. What is he to do?

Chapter 3

Ethical Decision-Making Moral Ecology

Moral ecology describes the phenomenon which takes a complex mixture of strategies to enhance high levels of cooperation within groups and the sophisticated dynamics of the interactions among those strategies over time. Each behavior strategy, which is often manifested in the form or a moral norm, has different levels of success in terms of promoting the cooperation depending on the environment in which it exists, mostly the other strategies unfolding around it. It takes leadership to incorporate this group synergy, it takes trust, and it takes ethics. It is difficult to discuss moral ecology without talking about values, the values of individuals, the values of small groups of people working together, and the values of the total organization, in this instance, a public school. Vision and values tell people what is important in the school. They support and enhance decision-making. They promote a kind of teamwork that is unique and sustaining. But, to make this happen, there must be a leader who is relentless in communicating that vision and those values. That leader must also be masterful in modeling that vision and those values. That is the magic of the research dealing with 90-90-90 schools. Those schools have 90 percent minority populations, they have 90 percent of their students on Free and Reduced Meals, and they have 90 percent of their students meeting or exceeding the standards. Why? They have one crucial element that surpasses all others. They have an uncompromising principal leader who will not be deterred from the matter at hand: that of promoting academic excellence on the part of all students and having teachers behave in a way to make that happen. This conversation is fundamental to how school leaders operate. Some people believe the concepts Values of Convenience, Relative Morality, and Situational Ethics are growing in popularity in our culture. They may be 51

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joined by Moral Reasoning, Social Cognition, and Moral Development in explaining that behavior is to be understood in context and that there is not an absolute good or bad. With this we must disagree passionately. Attempting to explain away an indiscretion and give credit for the judgmental error to circumstance hastens one’s run down the road to moral turpitude. We are living in the midst of a major values clarification experience. And, if we do not come to agreement on some fundamental points about right and wrong quickly, several generations of children will have been value imprinted to understand that right and wrong really don’t matter . . . as long as you can rationalize your behavior. Leadership, vision, values, and moral ecology can make it happen in a school. It takes strength, courage, and stamina on the part of the leadership to create and sustain it. TRUST Trust is so important a term that we must question whether organizations can ever be successful without it. Trust is so hard to earn and so easy to lose. It speaks to the deep inner feelings of a relationship between two individuals. It is about how we speak to each other; it is about how we act toward one another, both in presence and in absence. M. Scott Peck writes on this topic, in his work The Different Drum, as he describes how an organization moves from pseudo community, through chaos and emptiness, to true community. People working together, sharing similar values, trusting and caring for each other, and coming to a common understanding are what true community is about. It is a powerful and productive experience, one that seldom lasts very long. Peter Senge describes the same kind of circumstance in terms of a continuously learning community. which “is created when people work together to create the results they desire, think and work in truly innovative ways, and are continually learning how to learn together.” What a place a school like that would be! Followers must be able to trust their leaders. They must have faith in their leaders’ commitment to the vision and the values of the organization in even the most difficult situations. John Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage provided example after example of men being tortured with this dilemma. There is a distinct difference between the popular choice and the right choice. What are the vision and values driving the organization? Are the followers trusting that the leaders will make the correct choice?



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Stephen Covey, in his book The Speed of Trust, identifies five behaviors requiring character. They are: talking straight, demonstrating respect, creating transparency, righting wrongs, and showing loyalty. There are five behaviors requiring competence: delivering results, getting better, confronting reality, clarifying expectations, and practicing accountability. Finally, there are three behaviors requiring both character and competence. They are: listening first, keeping commitments, and extending trust. He offers insightful advice about how these are accomplished. Yet, here is where theory and practice become intertwined. This is much easier said than done. Integrity, trust, courage, and leadership go hand in hand. W. Clement Stone once wrote, “Have the courage to say no. Have the courage to face the truth. Do the right thing because it is right. These are the magic keys to living your life with integrity.” How true that is for the public school leader. One of Kent M. Keith’s ten Paradoxical Commandments is, “If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway.” Another is, “The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.” A third is, “Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.” This is sound advice that can help you build trust with the many constituencies which whom you interact on a daily basis. Honesty can be tough. Ponder the question, “Honesty at what cost?” Can you be completely honest all of the time? What about that concept we have in our culture that is called the little white lie? Here is a personal example. At some time a mother began giving her son a box of petit fours for Christmas each year. She was advanced in age and did not see the small print that these edibles should have been kept refrigerated until eaten. Since they were dutifully wrapped in the ceremonial paper, the son did not note this until he had taken them home after a two-hour drive and found that they had not been kept in a cooler. He had thanked her profusely for the gift and quickly tossed it in the trash (not wanting to get food poisoning) after opening it. What followed was an ironic pattern of gift-giving, lying, and trashing until her death. The mother felt that the son liked the cakes so much that she gave them to him each year; not wanting to hurt her feelings, he thanked her each year and, not wanting to get food poisoning, he trashed the gift each year. The question is, can we be honest all of the time? What if being honest hurts? What if being honest causes risks? Take this approach in professional conversations with what is called assertive communication. That means being honest with the individual with whom you are interacting yet promoting caring about him or her at the same time. If people feel you are not being honest with them, trust is quickly eroded and the possibility that it will be reclaimed is remote.

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ETHICS IN EDUCATION Anthony Tiatorio wrote a most fascinating piece about ethics education in January of 2007. He said, Human beings have an innate ethical sense that urges them to make predictable choices. Although most people believe that their actions are guided by logic and reason, reason often acts only as a mechanism to justify these choices. Language allows people to construct sophisticated rationales which support what are often genetically driven choices. Ethics education is about recognizing the real power of one’s innate ethical sense and how it influences our behavior. In this way, we can free reason to become a tool to truly guide our actions. Without the wisdom that results from understanding one’s innate self, reason remains a powerful propaganda prop for unchallenged intrinsic human ethical imperatives.

Consider the term rationalize. We have become a culture of rationalization. We can rationalize any behavior, twisting the facts with data, creating the right spin to alter the perception, casting blame where it does not belong. This fits nicely with the discussion about positional and personal leadership. Our youth are watching as the role models they hope to emulate take them through a complicated maze of ups and downs, positive acts, and demonstrations of corruption. It is very difficult for a youngster today to understand the difference between right and wrong. Isn’t the current mantra, “Just don’t get caught? And, if you do, if you have friends in the highest places, it doesn’t matter anyway. You can do what you want and we will forgive you.” Time and again our youth see scenarios of this kind unfolding on the television screen or learn about it on the Internet. Consider the behavior of two presidents, Nixon and Clinton, and how they have value imprinted entire cohorts of people in our country. There are too many examples of poor ethical decision-making in education. David Berliner describes this in terms of Campbell’s Law, “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social process it is intended to monitor. The ubiquity of this principle is shown in business and related domains. Applying the principle to education reveals that the over-reliance on high stakes testing has serious negative repercussions that are present at every level of the public school system.” He easily identifies ten examples and explains that there are far too many more, with the number increasing daily. An abundance of articles dealing with values-based leadership, making ethical choices, creating a culture of ethical leadership and the like has



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exploded across the public education landscape. This challenge is not unique to schools. An entire industry has evolved in the private sector to teach employees to not use the company telephone for personal means, to leave that ream of paper in the office, to not double your break time, and so on. Articles abound as well sharing that there is money to be made in being untruthful. One headline of a daily paper read, “In country of liars, the temptation is hard to resist. A little bit of lying can produce huge results in America.” The article included a list of people recently inducted into the Liars’ Hall of Shame. Bill O’Reilly’s July 23, 2011, column began with the headline, “Lying rampant in the US of A,” and shared, sadly, that judges will tell you that, “Lying under oath is the rule, not the exception, in the nation’s courtrooms.” He wrote about the epidemic of cheating in our nation’s schools and colleges, and quoted some popular entertainers who go by the credo, “If it feels good, do it,” and, “If it sounds good, say it.” Here is the kicker. “Many of the moral boundaries that once elevated this country have collapsed.” That is sad and it has come to permeate the halls of our public schools. Another article revealed The Truth About Lying, “From big whoppers to little white lies, almost everyone fibs on occasion.” Jenna McCarthy revealed that, “Most lies aren’t meant to be hurtful to others; rather they’re meant to help the one doing the fibbing.” She listed the top six ways that people don’t tell the truth. They are lying to save face, lying to shift blame, lying to avoid confrontation, lying to get one’s way, lying to be nice, and lying to make oneself feel better. She offers this bit of advice to interrupt this lying spiral. “When people who tend to deceive themselves spend too much time with frequent fibbers or even others who tolerate that type of mendacity, their destructive habits won’t be challenged or corrected. In the most serious situations, where lying is causing someone serious damage, it helps to be a particularly truth-conscious friend and lend support as well as a gentle, watchful eye.” One way of understanding how this undermining of our sense of right and wrong has been inculcated into our psychic is to listen how people talk. You hear the use of phrases like “values of convenience,” “relative morality,” and situational ethics” tossed about as if they were the harbingers of our way of thinking. These become particularly vexing when introduced into the conversations had in faculty rooms in our public schools. There are people working hard to counteract this growing epidemic of tearing apart our country’s moral fabric. Lynda and Richard Eyre wrote Teaching Your Children Values. They penned the text for laypeople to read and, early on, ask fundamental questions, “Are there such things as universal values? Is there such a thing as unconditional, unchanging, non-denominational morality? Are there certain standards of thought and behavior that are inherently

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right and that can be unequivocally accepted as good, or at least better than their opposites or alternatives?” Next they explain, “A true and universally acceptable value is one that produces behavior that is beneficial both to the practitioner and to those on whom it is practiced. It is a principle that either accomplishes well-being or presents harm (or does both). It is something that helps or something that prevents hurt.” They continue, “A value is distinguished by: (a) its ability to multiply and increase in our possession even as it is given away and; (b) the fact (even the law) that the more it is given to others, the more of it will be returned by others and received by ourselves.” They next identify six values of being (who we are): honesty, courage, peaceability, self-reliance, discipline, and fidelity. They also point out six values of giving: loyalty, respect, love, unselfishness, kindness, and justice. Who would find the teaching of these values objectionable in our schools? The teaching of values in our schools has been one of the most hotly debated topics for decades. The conversation has turned correctly from “Should values be taught in schools?” to “How are values taught in schools and who has control?” It is impossible for schools to not teach values. The way a school is designed, how grades are administered, as well as the code of discipline, curricular decisions, and health matters . . . the list goes on and on. Public schools are hotbeds of values. That is why the comment that schools have the eternal and impossible goal of being everything to everyone without offending even one is so important. It drives leadership into management for survival purposes. The Rotary Club’s Four-Way Test is another great example of an attempt to clear everyone’s head about decisions we make. Asking the four simple questions, “Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?” can help us sort out the sordidness of decision-making. Nathaniel Branden, in the book Heart at Work, wrote an interesting piece about integrity and self-esteem. He said, in part, If I am uniquely situated to raise my self-esteem, I am also uniquely situated to lower it. One of the great self-deceptions is to tell oneself, “Only I will know.” Only I will know I am a liar; only I will know I have deal unethically with people who trust me; only I will know I have no intention of honoring my promise. The implication is that my judgment is unimportant and that only the judgment of others counts. But when it comes to matters of self-esteem, I have more to fear from my own judgment than from anyone else’s. In the inner courtroom of my mind, mine is the only judgment that counts. My ego, the “I” at the center of my consciousness, is the judge from whom there is no escape. I can avoid people who have learned the humiliating truth about me. I cannot avoid myself.



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This is advice is well given and should be part of all mentoring programs for new administrators. If we are to have a strong ethical relationship in our schools, that will begin with individuals, one at a time. It is, however, easier said than done. The implications of actualizing this can be troubling as the relationship between a superintendent and his sitting board of education begin to unravel as a result of several ethical decisions made by the superintendent. These decisions may combine the complexity of trust, courage, and sacrifice. The sacrifice will not be just for the superintendent but for his family as well. Imagine that, a couple of years into his tenure, the superintendent dealt with a long-standing fraudulent transportation issue that needed to be addressed. The result was that some bus drivers worked to have a board member sympathetic to their cause elected to the board. Another individual made it a point to get elected because that individual’s spouse did not get a position in the school system. The spouse’s application had not survived the established process yet the newly elected board member blamed the superintendent for this matter. The superintendent was not going to violate the protocols because of political pressure. Finally, an internal personnel matter caused a board member to look at the superintendent with a jaundiced eye. As a result, despite leading the district to some of the highest test scores in the state and establishing a million dollar carryover in our budget, the superintendent found himself looking at a two to three vote on his contract. Why? Because he wanted to be ethical. This was stressful on his well-being as he attempted to shield the repercussions from his family, though it did get to them. Ethics and trust are important. But they are nothing absent the courage to operationalize them. People in leadership positions come to realize the quality that enables operationalization is courage, from both the leader and his or her family. That is why it is so difficult to move from a management behavior to a sustainable leadership behavior in public schools. Individuals often don’t mind sacrificing themselves, but they fear the burden it places on their loved ones. SCENARIO 1 For five years, Bill Fold has served as the chair of his school district’s textbook selection committee. Fold, who is also the school system’s director of secondary education, has scheduled textbook purchases for a five-year cycle. Each year, the replacement costs and new series expenses have totaled nearly a half million dollars. This year, the school district’s mathematics texts are under review.

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Fold has on his committee Ella Mentary, a school-level administrator, Rusty Nail, a veteran of twenty-five years teaching experience; Justin Tyme, an administrator in the school district’s budget office who always wants matters completed ahead of schedule; and I. M. Smart, an up-and-coming administrative intern. The committee each year arranges for publisher representatives to present to teachers at each grade level, participate in an interview process, and leave copies of their texts for review. Since Fold handles the logistical operations of the committee work, he has come to know the representatives well since he has assumed this responsibility. The quality of one publisher, with representative Al Gorithm, has consistently exceeded the others and, except for one year, Fold and his committee have recommended purchasing from that company. The board of education has approved the recommendations and the relationship between the school system and the publishing company, as well as between Fold and Gorithm, has flourished. As Fold is getting ready to leave school one day, he receives a call from Gorithm asking if Fold would like to meet him at a medium-priced restaurant in town. Gorithm has some ideas that he would like to discuss that may be mutually beneficial to both the school system and the publishing company. As Fold contemplates acquiescing to this meeting, what thoughts come to his mind? What examples of the “appearance of impropriety” might impact his decision? SCENARIO 2 Art Tichoak is the principal of an elementary school that has a problem. Students in his school have performed poorly on the state writing test for the past three years. As a result, public perception of his school is at an all-time low; parents are exercising their option to take their children to schools where the writing scores are much higher; and as a result of the loss of students and the decline in enrollment, he will have to recommend that three of his teachers, Jim Locker, Ginger Ale, and Perry Winkle, be riffed. Tichoak has a friend, Luke Warm, who works at the state department and, after a couple of glasses of wine at dinner one evening, Warm reveals to him what the writing prompt will be for the upcoming state assessment in the spring. It will be a persuasive prompt. Warm shares with Tichoak that he will deny ever having revealed this to him. As a result of this new-found information, Tichoak develops persuasive writing prompts for his teachers to administer each week to their students. He supports this with persuasive writing professional development for his



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teachers and uses school-wide sessions to administer and evaluate student responses to these prompts. This continues through the eight weeks leading to the state assessments. One teacher, Crystal Klere, asks Tichoak why he is concentrating on only persuasive prompts. Tichoak responds saying that he feels student writing on other prompts was sufficient but that they needed much more support in responding to a persuasive prompt. Predictably, when the test results are revealed the fall after the spring administration of the assessment, Tichoak’s students have shown remarkable improvement. Parents stop taking their children to other schools. Because of this and the fact that parents from other schools now want their children at Tichoak’s school, due to the upturn in writing scores, not only have the jobs of Locker, Ale, and Winkle been saved, but two additional teaching positions have been slated for the school. Public perception of the school is now becoming positive and everyone is happy. What are the ethical questions inherent to this scenario? Do Tichoak’s ends justify his means? What about saving three teachers’ positions? Would the situation have been any different if Tichoak’s superintendent had given him an ultimatum to improve student writing scores or lose his job? What if that ultimatum had been given to Tichoak by his superintendent just after Tichoak purchased a new home with a higher mortgage payment and his first child entered college with an annual bill of twenty thousand dollars? If Tichoak does not act on this “advanced scouting report” about the state test, what is he do to with it? What, if anything, should he do about his friend at the state department who released this information to him? SCENARIO 3 Kay Mart is the special education chair of her high school. Part of her duties includes chairing the Individual Education Program process, of which one component is the testing of students for possible identification and inclusion into the special education program at her school. Her principal, Will Power, has repeatedly shared with her that their school has been rated as superior through the high stakes testing process at the state level as well as under the provision of No Child Left Behind. The state in which Mart’s school is located mandates that No Child Left Behind cells be counted if they have twenty or more students. Currently, known only to Mart, the school is at nineteen. A new student was identified the day before. No special needs students have met or exceeded the state standard for mathematics, reading, or writing for the past three years. That means, if the

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number hits twenty, the school’s special education data will be included in the rating process and the superior label will be lost. As Mart sifts through her mail in the morning, she notices a request from a new tenth-grade English teacher, April Showers, to have a student proceed through the identification process for possible inclusion in special education. Mart knows the student and the student’s parents. Mart was a high school classmate of the student’s mother. She knows she can use her influence to dissuade the parents from initiating and continuing the process. Mart is also an eighteen-year veteran who is mentoring Showers this school year. She can use that relationship to have Showers withdraw the request without anyone knowing about it. As for the student, before any educational or psychological testing has been completed, Mart knows through observation that his application could go either way. Since some of the input into the process is subjective, there appears to be a fifty-fifty chance of him being identified, which would mean that her school would hit the magic number twenty and the special education data would be included in the high stakes evaluation process and state and No Child Left Behind rating. The school has 1,250 students. Mart struggles with labeling the entire school as not superior due to the identification of this one student. She worries about her relationship with her principal, her friend the parent, and the responsibility she has for this student. As she deliberates on this matter, she comes to you for a frank conversation. What would you tell her and why?

Chapter 4

The Fight for the Public Comprehensive School System

There are various kinds of educational systems in America. Some are combinations of each other; some are hybrids. An examination of the nuances of each is necessary in order to understand why people elect to have their children educated in one system or another. Government policy and regulations allow some models to “skim” the best students from the comprehensive schools. At other times, parents with the necessary resources have the opportunity to take their children to a different model. Sometimes the government provides vouchers to assist those families who have limited funds to access their model of choice. The money follows the students. With the “choice students” and the money to support them gone, the public comprehensive school is often challenged with “doing more for the more needy students with fewer resources,” that is, educating students who have the more severe needs with fewer dollars to do so. In addition, the public comprehensive school is the lone model that must accept all students in its boundaries. The other models can remove students for academic, attendance, or behavior reasons, and send them back to their public comprehensive school, setting up an unbalanced system of success and creating a false sense of accomplishment on the part of the other models. Another important development takes place when some students are returned to the public school from a private venue that underserves those students. The vexing process of accurately placing those students or filling in the gaps to “bring them up to speed” becomes an arduous task for the teachers, a worrisome development for the parents, and a frustrating situation for the students. The convergence of opportunity and competition between these different delivery systems is important to understand as they are likely to look much 61

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different in the coming years. Could the pressures of the competing models mean the end of the public comprehensive school model as we know it? THE PUBLIC COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL The public comprehensive school is the basic form of education in our country. These schools and their companion school systems were developed to give people an opportunity to have direct contact with those who would educate their children. Governed by a board of education that is either appointed or elected, these schools must follow the letter of the law from the federal and state governments. Further, they have a responsibility to provide a “free and appropriate education” for all children living within their political boundaries. That responsibility extends until those children reach the age of twenty-one. Often the weight of the multitude of federal and state policy and regulations cripples the operation of comprehensive schools as staff struggle with understanding that policy and those regulations and come to grips with implementing both, capturing data to support their fidelity to the language, and completing a mountain of paperwork to prove it. A letter appeared in a local paper in January of 2011. It wrote of the frustration of dealing with the never-ending supply of federal and state regulations. The title was “Public School Regulations Often Intrusive.” It read, Congress is now back in session. State legislative bodies are also preparing to sift through a plethora of proposed language that may give birth to new laws. Often, when these laws find their way to the door of public education, they become both intrusive and contradictory to established patterns of behavior in the adult world. The intense public focus on academics makes the faulty assumption that educators have abandoned the reason for their career choice. Nothing could be further from the truth. Students now face a more rigorous academic curriculum than each cohort that preceded them. In fact, there is a sense that nearly 90 percent of the adult public could not meet or exceed the state standard on even the middle school mathematics and reading tests. Besides the unyielding cry for higher academic standards and accompanying student performance, those who labor in our public schools are legislated to curtail such student behaviors as bullying, sexual promiscuity, poor eating habits, inappropriate dress, drug and alcohol consumption, and smoking—while they promote service learning and volunteerism. Indeed, these are lofty goals. As students leave the classroom and return to the world outside, how different the influences on their lives can be. What kind of people are celebrated in our movies, sitcoms, and tabloids? How do these media treat students who are smart, pay attention in class, and do their homework?



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The reality also is that teachers and administrators often “take it on the chin” on both the large and small screens. Have you checked out the full-page color ads for perfume? What do they suggest to our young people about sexual behavior? Venture to the boardwalk and you will see for sale clothing of which less than ten percent would be acceptable in a public school. What does this say to our students? To those who debate, pass, and sign into law language that mandates volunteerism (which sounds oxymoronic), how many of them volunteer just an hour a week themselves? While it is nice to talk about the problems in schools, the reality is that they are not the schools’ problems. Educators have simply been asked to do what our other institutions cannot accomplish and often work against—to promote a senses of civility in our young people, to encourage them to eat better, nurture positive relationships with their peers, avoid the pitfalls of drugs, alcohol and tobacco, and to postpone sexual activity until marriage. Is this a fool’s errand? I hope not. However, while our public is sitting around modeling the very behaviors they legislate schools to have students avoid, educators are not “waiting for superman.” They are simply looking for the adult world to demonstrate the very values they foist on schools. When adults and all of the other institutions model the behavior they want to see in our youth, only at that time will we begin to see a real reformation in education—and what a great sight it will be. To quote one of those students, “Get real and walk the talk!”

Funding is also an issue. Some states provide for local funding for public schools to be provided at the pleasure of the county government; others require a public vote for educators to access local money for certain programs; all have some unit-driven mechanism to provide a percentage of the school system’s budget from the state. Again, most involve a complicated series of steps impeded by sophisticated formulas that sometimes defy one’s ability to understand them. Because the local share of the school districts’ budgets is most often based on the property value of the land, some school districts find themselves at a distinct disadvantage regarding funding. Despite some efforts at the state level to correct this matter, it goes unresolved and has forced some local school systems to attempt a legal remedy. Public schools have been given the responsibility to solve most of the problems that our greater government is unable to deal with. Children come to school from segregated communities and are stirred into a salad bowl once they get off the bus. Problems with teenage promiscuity, often stirred by advertisements, movies, and adult entrepreneurs, are expected to be corrected in the school. The growing challenge of childhood obesity, spurred by poor eating habits in the home, is expected to be reversed by a combination of diet control in the school cafeteria and curriculum in the health class. The list goes on and on.

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Certainly, the role of the public school educator is quite different than that imagined over a century ago when the schoolmaster’s task was limited to “readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmetic.” VOCATIONAL SCHOOLS Because of the resource-intensive nature of providing vocational education, some states have developed a parallel public school system that was designed to provide training in the technical skills at central locations. It was determined that having fewer schools offering this education would reduce the outlay for the equipment and materials and reduce the costs for state taxpayers. Of course, there was one additional expense: that of transporting students from their home schools to the nearest vocational school. Some vocational school leaders elected to expand their role of schooling and include Advanced Placement classes and placed themselves in direct competition with their comprehensive school neighbors. At times they accomplished this by cutting the very technical classes that they were designed to provide. Because they had more direct access to state and local money, these schools also could afford higher salary scales and often drew educators from the comprehensive schools to teach those academic classes. Please be reminded that this is a generalization and that not all vocational schools engage in these kinds of practices. Are all vocational schools thusly posed? Certainly not. PRIVATE SCHOOLS Private schools have the ability to promote their vision and values and say to families, “This is what we are about. If you like it, pay the tuition, meet our standards, and come on in.” They are often homogenous, unless there are children of color whose parents are wealthy. Rarely do they have children identified as needing special education. One could argue that they are our culture’s ultimate “educational skimmers.” They have the ability to take those students who have what David Berliner calls cultural capital that best matches the cultural capital of those who design high stakes assessments, especially the SAT, and provide experiences, because of the maximum parental support, that will elongate those experiences into acceptance at our nation’s most prestigious institutions of higher learning. There is no problem with private schools except when they are held up as models for providing students with the “best” education, when, in reality, their “talent pool” will have likely excelled even absent its time at the school.



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MAGNET SCHOOLS Magnet schools are similar to comprehensive schools with one difference. Students are drawn to them for a singular purpose: they want specifically to develop their musical talent, they are interested in dance, or they are motivated by one particular content area, perhaps mathematics. However, if the experience folds, for whatever reason, these students can still retreat back to their designated comprehensive school. CHOICE SCHOOLS School systems with numerous elementary, middle, or high schools which have one or more with a sub-par rating are required to offer the parents of students attending the sub-par school the option of attending a school with a competent rating. There are limitations to this, such as enrollment capacity. Sometimes school systems give preference to students who have siblings in the preferred school, to students whose parents work at the school, or for some other reason. States have adopted school choice options as a means of increasing competition between schools, with the assumption that competing for students and the money that follows them will force all schools and school districts to improve. This was supposed to be one strategy for school reform that would be successful. However, it would work only if parents chose schools for the appropriate reasons. They do not. The first reason parents use for opting for school choice is daycare. The convenience of finding satisfactory outof-school coverage for their children is the prevailing factor in choosing one school over another. The second reason is athletics. Parents are searching for the high school with the most favored sports team that will benefit their children. This is not the kind of thinking which will most likely result in improved academic scores on the part of schools. If the reasons why parents choose one school over another have nothing to do with academics, how will this result in better and more successful academic programs for all schools? CHARTER SCHOOLS Charter schools are public schools without the regulatory strings attached. Their governance system can be much different than that of the comprehensive school. Some states require that the charter be approved by a local

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board of education. By design, charter schools accommodate a certain type of student. At times the charter of the school is designed to provide support for the most needy of students, those who would not be able to survive in the comprehensive school. That is more the exception than the rule. A review of the entry processes for too many charter schools finds them taking from the comprehensive models the top students, mostly white students, seldom special education students, negotiating a parental participation agreement with the parents, and sending back to the comprehensive school any students who fail to meet academic, attendance, or behavior expectations or whose parents fail to honor their participatory contracts. Interestingly, the research which compares the results of charter schools and comprehensive schools does not favor one model over the other. True, some charter schools do an excellent job serving the special student population which they have embraced. Wouldn’t it be nice if more of them would do that? HOME SCHOOLING While there are instances of students excelling in the home schooling model, too much experience has been much different. Some parents apply for and get approval from the state for home schooling licenses to prevent visiting teachers from pursuing them because their children will not attend school. Other parents receive home schooling licenses which provide for older children to be babysitters for their younger siblings. What is lacking is anything close to oversight on the part of the state departments of education on the home schooling movement. There are home schooling affiliations, some with a religious focus, that provide diverse materials to parents who approach this model with the best of intentions. There is an opportunity for parents to take advantage of this model; there is also an opportunity for their children to be victimized by it. Are there instances of positive and virtuous home schooling situations? Indeed. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were more of them? VIRTUAL SCHOOLING Dr. William Daggett once posed the most fascinating point. “Why?” he asked, “do we make attendance required and achievement optional? Why don’t we make achievement a requirement and attendance optional?” He pointed out how our culture has transformed over the past 150 years from a



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place where the workers and the work were located at the same place, to a point where we created sophisticated infrastructure to take the workers to the work, to the point where now, with technology, we can take the work to the workers. We’ve all seen the commercials where the person doing the work is either at home in his pajamas or she’s at the beach in a bikini. Still, the work is being accomplished. An administrator once registered a team of teachers from the Eastern shore of Maryland for a conference in Baltimore, some seventy miles away. He noticed a certain speech pattern of the voice of the individual making the reservations. He asked her where she was. She said Indonesia. So, here he was, making a contract between two places less than a hundred miles apart yet talking with someone on the other side of the world. Daggett expands that point to ask, “Why should students have to come to school?” Can’t they access their education through technology like the rest of the world is rapidly doing with its work? In fact, virtual schools and universities are springing up around the globe. There are graduate-level education courses offered through a full virtual mode. However, isn’t the best model the hybrid where students access half of their schooling on an electronic system and the other half face-to-face? It is very important to build relationships with students, something hard to do when you do not ever meet with them. There are other challenges with virtual schooling. It is difficult to know who is really doing the work. Universities are finding ways to certify this, but it is not yet foolproof. It seems the opportunities are being discovered more rapidly than our capacity to contain and monitor them. Regardless, this paradigm shift, more than any other, has the potential to completely alter the educational landscape. Imagine an elementary, middle, or high school with no walls, no transportation system, and no cafeteria. What would happen to sports teams and other student activities in a setting such as this? We are steadily moving to this type of format for the schooling of our youth. SCENARIO Bill Board has been a staunch supporter of his local high school. He has worked hard to create a successful school in every way possible. He spent an inordinate amount of time selecting the best teachers he could find; he worked through the negotiations process to provide a higher level of pay for them; he created linkages with members of the local business community to support his programs and initiatives. He has garnered parental support through his availability and easy style of communication.

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As a result, his director, Bud Wiser, and superintendent, Krystal Ball, have thrown their full support behind him. If any issue were to arise, he is confident that they will support him to their fullest ability. One battle that Board has been waging has dealt with the neighboring vocational school. Because of state policy and regulations, that school has been able to offer a more favorable salary scale than the teachers at Board’s school can get. Also, more favorable funding streams have permitted the vocational school to construct newer, larger, and more state-of-the-art facilities. Board has been concerned that the money spent by the vocational school on marketing exceeds his entire discretionary budget and is beginning to draw some of the more talented students from his school. While the vocational school touts a lottery system to select students, Board notes that it seems like the more talented athletes always seem to get in. As a result, Board’s school is finding it difficult to compete with the vocational school’s extracurricular program year in and year out. The final straw for Board was when the vocational school elected to disband some of its trade classes, such as masonry, plumbing, and construction (saying there was no longer a need for workers with these skills), and began to offer Advanced Placement classes. This, he felt, was direct competition for his students, both in terms of academic interests and extracurricular programs. Board wrote letters to the editor of the local papers. He met with state legislators. He worked harder to make his school the very best it could be. One day, as he was opening his mail, he received a telephone call. It was, most interestingly, from the superintendent of the vocational school, Justin Case. Case said he had heard a lot about Board’s work ethic from teachers who had moved from Board’s school to the vocational school. He had also listened as students who used to attend Board’s school spoke of Board’s caring and sensitivity to student needs. Case said he knew what Board was making as principal of his school and he would be willing to increase that by 50 percent. For good measure, Case said, he would give Board his own car with unlimited mileage for both professional and personal use. Case said that his current principal, Ann Tiques, who had been at the school for thirty-five years, was retiring. Case ended by saying that he would give Board a week to “think on it” after which, if Board was not interested, he would move in another direction. Board comes to you, his best friend and confidant, to discuss this. What do you tell him and why?

Chapter 5

Equity and Equality Public Education’s Purpose

Most people believe in the capacity of public education as the “great equalizer” in our society. Public educators are to have, many hope, the ability to take students who arrive at school with different cultural capital (children who have been read to before they were born, have traveled extensively, and been taught mathematics facts and colors before their formal school time arrives come to that first day of kindergarten with those whose homes do not contain one book, whose parents lack either the skill or the interest to teach their children how to share, count, or color between the lines) and somehow shape experiences so they walk out of high school on some equal scale. Is this a fool’s errand? For the common person, it would appear that there are two strategies with which to accomplish this. The system either speeds up experiences for the students behind or retards the growth of those already ahead. Either strategy has one dreadfully sure result . . . the precocious students do not get the support they need and deserve. That is why the parents of many well-educated families become disgusted with public schools. They don’t feel that their children get what they need. One public school administrator had three academically precocious children. The schools that they attended did very little to enrich their experiences, stimulate their growth, or provide any other service that would make each of them feel welcome in the school. One child had an “enrichment class” with a teacher who had to surrender her planning period to do it. That did not work out well. Another was forced to take a class after school hours in order to maintain her high academic track. For the third, the administrator’s wife was required to take him from an elementary school, drive across town each day to a middle school, wait until his Algebra class was over and drive back across town each day to the elementary school. Despite these pitiful examples of support, the administrator 69

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continued to press for his children and they exited their high school experiences and earned acceptance at the colleges and universities of their choice. It was not easy, and he resented the lack of support, resources, and energy each of the schools applied to his children’s situations. Is he any different than other parents who want the best for their children? And, the explosion of private and charter schools is proof positive that these parents are voting with both their feet and their pocketbooks to achieve success for their children. The trouble is that public school educators are required to improve the plight of those children who come to school underprepared, who provide unwholesome data to the high stakes accountability movement, and who, time and again, demonstrate challenges in academics, attendance, and behavior. The school people have no choice. These students must be dealt with. And, with finite resources, if you are spending most of your time, money, and people on those who need it most, what happens to those who need it most but just in another way, at the upper end of the scale? The point is this. You can close the achievement gap in one of two ways. You can stimulate only the students who are at the bottom or you can deny support to those at the top. Either way you are doing the same, advantaging one cohort at the expense of the other. Educational leaders sometimes make silly statements such as, “By implementing these strategies both groups will improve.” If that is the case, the achievement gap will not be narrowed. The one and only way for one group to catch the other is to give the one behind advantages that are denied to the other. This is one of the great lies in education. We can’t be against helping those who need it. The resentment comes from holding back the very skillful in the process. Perhaps, for the educators laboring in our public schools, we have given them “mission impossible.” SKIMMING One way to get banners, commendations, and other recognition from the state and federal government in education is to find a way of collecting the best students, implementing a moderately successful strategy, and let the results “fall where they may.” Skimming has become an art form in public education. You can’t mind when private schools do it. We expect that they will. They will attract similarly visioned parents, have them buy into their values, require them by contract to participate in their children’s education (including huge fundraising campaigns), and agree that their children will be sent back to their home comprehensive school if they fall short in their academics, attendance, or behavior. These schools are up front about this and the parents who agree to it know what they are getting into.



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But we abhor sneaky charter schools or vocational schools that use subversive tactics to attract only the top students from the comprehensive public schools and implement a moderately successful strategy that lets them look like they are doing more than they are. By the way, too many vocational schools also have the opportunity to return students to their home comprehensive schools for shortcomings in academics, attendance, or behavior. What bothers educators most is that their results are reported against those same comprehensive high schools and the comparison makes them look much better. What bothers people even more is that state officials look the other way when this is pointed out to them. Do all charter schools and vocational schools operate in this way? They don’t. It is too bad that there are more of them that do not. For the public comprehensive schools, there is no option. Public comprehensive schools will eventually be moved into extinction by these kinds of developments. One other nauseating fact about skimming is that the money follows the students. When these skimmers are permitted to take these best students from the comprehensive public schools, the state money attached to each student follows that student to the new school. What is left at the comprehensive school? Those educators are left with the most challenging students and fewer resources to meet their needs. State and federal officials are baffled that this system does not work to the benefit of these needy students! How can they not know? Every system is perfectly created to get the results it does. State and federal regulations have placed the comprehensive public school in the most tenuous position . . . and then they criticize those very schools for getting the results they do. That may be good politics but it is bad policy. EQUITY AND EQUALITY Equity is giving students what they need. It means some students may get more than others because of their circumstances. This means that there must be some agreement on the values that drive the school. The values might mean that more resources are driven to the earlier grades. Or, it may determine that more resources are directed to students who fail to meet the designated level on high stakes tests. Or, it could mean that more resources will be driven to the school’s most precocious students. Imagine that ever happening! Once there was a superintendent who used this story to drive this point home. Suppose there is a man on a lawnmower, working for the state highway department. He is mowing the grass in between the north and south lanes. He comes upon a foam cup and contemplates getting off his mower.

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“It is hot,” he rationalizes, and “I can get more done quicker by just mowing over the cup.” After the mower spews the cup out the back, his supervisor comes to him and asks him to pick up the cup. Is the cup easier to pick up before or after it has succumbed to the mower? To ask that question is to answer it. Now, for the reality question. Is it easier to fix a broken student in middle or high school or to keep that student from becoming broken in elementary school by directing more resources to that level? This was important in terms of staffing. Whenever there was a question of whether that extra teaching position would go to a needy elementary school or a needy secondary school, that answer was always known. There are many other goals of allocating resources. They may be directed at Advanced Placement or technical classes; they may be used to stimulate gender participation in certain programs as opposed to promoting a volunteer initiative; they may attend to extracurricular (athletic or non-athletic) needs at the expense of academic programs; they may be directed to the purchasing of textbooks rather than technology. Keep in mind that these resources may be human, temporal, or fiscal. Remember that people are money, time is money, and money is money. It always comes back to money. Most often, the question is between students who are successful and those who are not. Guess where the resources will go every time? Another important part of this discussion is from where the funds come. Some from the federal government (most of these are earmarked), though a percentage comes from the state government (mostly unit-driven). The rest come from the local government, with many states requiring a public vote to increase taxes to increase funding. The challenge facing too many communities is that the value of their local property is not the same as in other school districts and puts them at a steep fiscal disadvantage when trying to support their public comprehensive schools. Also, the less wealthy the community, the more likely the struggle to increase local taxes will be an uphill battle. There have been legal challenges regarding basing local school funding on the value of local property but that battle wages on to the detriment of those less wealthy school districts, their educators, and the children who attend them. Jonathan Kozal, in his book Savage Inequalities, said it best when he described why a community would not send its Little League all-star team into state competition absent gloves, bats, and balls. Yet those same communities send their children to schools whose resources are well below those of neighboring communities’ schools. Another output of having a high rate of poverty in your local school system deals with how it impacts scores on high stakes assessments. Dr. Fenwick



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English explains this best when he tells us to identify the Free and Reduced Meal Students (FARMS) rates of each school and district and compare those rates with the performances of students and schools on high stakes tests. You will always see a correlation. Those schools and districts with the higher FARMS rates will always have the lower test scores. This, he reports, is the impact of different cultural capital. The FARMS students are less likely to have a similar cultural capital as that of the doctoratelevel educators who create the high stakes tests. Robert Marzano explains this in terms of the three factors influencing student achievement. They are what the school does, what happens in the classroom, and what the student brings to the school experience. The student’s experience before and after the educational time spent in the classroom is critical to maximizing that student’s potential. SCENARIO Mark Tyme finds himself in a bind and running out of time. He is a secondyear principal at his middle school, and he has a major challenge facing him. As he has prepared his final budget report for his school, he finds that he has some ten thousand dollars remaining in his discretionary account, a sum he must spend prior to July 1 or it will revert back to the district. As always, there are very strong and competing interests for these resources. Art Klass has been campaigning for funding for the past four months. He has been one of Tyme’s biggest supporters as well as an exceptional teacher in the specials curriculum. Klass always has his students prepared, they compete favorably in every art show they can access, and he has created what he calls his Artists at Residence, a parent group that will do pretty much anything he wants them to. This time, he has asked them to submit a petition to have these funds used to send the top ten students to a summer art class at a local college, costing one thousand dollars each. Klass reminds Tyme that the art program remains a major drawing card for the school and that the art students are and have been at Tyme’s disposal for any and all school beautification initiatives or any other special purposes that may arise. Page Turner is working on a special project to improve the reading scores of students in the sixth grade. She has identified two dozen students whose parents are willing to have them come into school this summer to work on specialized assignments designed to improve their reading background. The cost of this technology is $10,500. Turner insists that she can find the extra five hundred dollars from another source if Tyme will agree to give her the ten thousand dollars. Turner tells Tyme that if she can improve these

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twenty-four students’ reading background, it will have a positive impact on high stakes reading scores for their next two years at the middle school. Ima Hogg is an outspoken mathematics teacher. She can afford to be. Her husband was just elected president of the school board. She wants the ten thousand dollars to set up a summer tutoring program for the school’s mathematics students. The school’s mathematics scores could be better, Tyme knows, but they aren’t that bad. Hogg’s plan is the weakest of the three but, as she has shared with Tyme, she has already spoken about this with her husband and he, as she put it, “has given me his full support.” The previous spring, Tyme had organized a budget steering committee. It outlined priorities for the school, all of which had been met. Neither he nor they had anticipated this ten thousand dollar windfall, the result of an increase in state funding for a project for which it had been designated but now can be used at the school’s discretion. Now Tyme ponders how to decide what course of action to take. He comes to you, his friend and confidant, to talk. What do you tell him and why?

Chapter 6

Accountability

Albert Einstein said it best, “Not everything that counts can be counted and not everything that can be counted counts.” How true that is with our public schools. How do you measure a motivated student? He might fall short on the high stakes assessment and move on to a great future. His teacher might not have been able to get him to that state mathematics standard, but was successful in instilling in the boy a sense of purpose and community. There is talk of an “invisible curriculum” in public schools, one that strengthens students’ sense of community and motivation for volunteerism. It softens the hardness of gaps in socio-economic differences and flattens the sharp edges of some of society’s toughest issues. It’s too bad it isn’t more transparent to the creators of the reform movement. Accountability is so much theory and so little reality it is a wonder that more people don’t scoff at it. When you hear someone in the educational community say “We’ll hold them accountable for that” or “We’ll be held accountable,” what does that really mean? Too often, if you ask what that means, the response will be less than satisfactory. When one school administrator was a young boy growing up, his parents had an interesting way of holding him and his siblings accountable. After they had been found guilty of some transgression in the Kitchen Court of Law, where their parents were, at once, lawyers, judge, and jury, one level of consequence was to “move the bricks.” His parents had a pile of some 250 bricks in the back yard that would have to be moved, one at a time, to a different location. The time that it took to make that move provided the carrier sufficient time to consider his behavior in order to reduce the possibility of having to relocate the solid rectangles to another location. For the most part, the young 75

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lads had control over their decisions and were able to make improvements in their behavior. What about educators who have been “moving the bricks” for the past four plus decades? They have been suffering under accountability measures while dealing with too many influences over which they have no control. How can that be fair? This chapter will take a look at accountability through the prism of cost and the various groups who are supposed to be held accountable. Since education, despite the magnificent federal entanglements, is still a state responsibility, accountability looks differently from state to state. In some states, the standard is set at a certain level; in others not so. In some states, forty students are needed to activate sub-groups’ cells; in others it takes only five students. There is a movement afoot to move more standardized accountability protocols to the national level, but that has run head first into issues relating to local control. It will be interesting to see how that plays out. Because of precious few resources, educators are forced to make some significant decisions about how to apply those resources to the accountability movement. How could one argue with a principal who identifies “bubble students,” those who either narrowly missed the standard or narrowly made the standard, especially those “bubble students” who populate more than one cell, and apply the lion’s share of the resources to their development, supporting them with specialized tutoring programs, finding ways to schedule them for extra mathematics and reading classes, and so on? If this type of initiative is marginally successful, the principal has a good chance of moving the school from that dreaded label of “Under Review” and possibly save his job for another year. Yet, what of those students at the very bottom, those students who, despite the application of all of the school’s resources, will not improve to the level to assist the school staff’s efforts in meeting the standard? Are they to be dismissed like so many empty soft drink bottles? And, usually forgotten in this kind of conversation are those students who have mastered the standards, at a high level. What of that cohort? Are they to excel despite the indifference of those doing the “bean counting”? Since that, sadly, has usually been the case for these students, hardly anyone will notice anyway. A sufficient number of researchers have pointed out the foolhardiness of comparing and ranking schools, some whose students are marginalized by scarce resources and others whose fortunes are enhanced through an abundance of resources. Policymakers have long been advised to stop that process. Sadly, it continues; it continues to the detriment of those hardworking

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educators fighting to balance life’s fortunes for students living in communities that cannot support them. We’ve all heard about the term relative deprivation. Everyone is living in life’s misfortune and longing for the advantages from which others benefit. Study after study will show that lining up a state’s Free and Reduced Meal Students rates with high stakes test scores will always show a pattern, a pattern that verifies that the more students’ cultural capital is aligned with those who craft the high stakes test, the better those students do on that assessment. That is not rocket science . . . but it is true. Finally, a word about international comparisons. Aren’t you tired of hearing lectures complaining of the latest ranking of the United States in international rankings, too often compared with countries who “test and discard” students who don’t score well as they move through their respective educational systems? This pattern leaves these countries testing only their very best students while the United States, according to David Berliner, attempts to educate more children for a longer period of time than any other nation in the world. The problem is that all of our children are compared with only the very best in most other nations. We are told we are not doing the job. This is insulting and unsubstantiated. Let’s put our best against the rest of the world’s best. We’ll finally see how we rank. It may not be at the top but it will certainly be a level at which we may be proud. Berliner uses this example. He says our Japanese students outperform the Japanese Japanese students all of the time. He feels they do because they have the “best of both worlds”: access to the world’s best educational system and a high level of support from their parents. This is the secret to accountability: quality education and supportive parents. What a successful formula that can be. The question remains, can educators make this work? Certainly, they can create educational experiences that will maximize students’ time in schools. It is doubtful that they have the ability to motivate parents to support their children. However, consider what is at stake in other, mostly Asian, countries. In those areas, education is very important. If a student is absent from school due to illness, a parent is likely to go in the student’s place; students participate in a regimen designed to complete all homework on time, and to the best of their ability, every day; tens of thousands of students participate in afterschool tutorial sessions, either in the evenings of the days they attend school or on Saturdays and Sundays. Education is very important to them. It shows in where they spend their time and other resources. That is much different than the prevailing attitude in the United States.

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If the majority of our students demonstrated the behaviors just identified, our student scores would lead the rest of the world . . . by a very large margin. You see, it isn’t the educational system; it’s people’s attitudes toward education. There is a nasty downside to this emphasis on schooling in some nations. Because of the fact that where one ends his formal education determines, nearly exactly, his standing in life for the test of his life, there is intense pressure to perform well, to do the very best. An unfortunate by-product of this intensity is a high teenage suicide rate. Our students do not labor under this pressure; our students’ parents generally do not encourage them to those lengths, and sadly, our society does not value education to the extent noted in those other countries. So, to compare our results to others is like comparing apples and oranges. The systems are not equally designed or implemented. How can the same, or similar, results be expected? SUCCESS Perhaps too much dialogue has been expended in the halls of our schools concerning the matter of success. A student learns in order that success might be achieved. An athlete practices in order that success may be realized. Promoting that goal, the attainment of success, is indeed admirable. However, a word of caution is in order and must accompany the promotion of success and attainment. Our society has been transformed into a virtual battleground with competition ruling the day. Books dealing with how to get power, how to use it, and how to keep it are finding a growing market. The readers of such works are interested in one goal: being the best. These bestsellers are filled with graphic advice about how to “get to the top,” usually at the expense of someone else. Indeed, in the not-too-distant past, we have seen examples of those who fought their way to the top in the investment arena or through the stock market using questionable and, sometimes, unethical and illegal tactics. Power, competition, and success are three terms which are becoming more and more popular in our lexicon. Yet they must be used very carefully in describing the individual in terms of his or her obtained status in the group. These are norm-referenced concepts. Are they not measured at the expense of others? Who won or lost the game? Who received the highest grade? Who wore the most expensive gown to the prom? Who makes the most money? Who has the biggest house or the more conspicuous car?

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It is unfortunate that this is part of our culture’s measuring stick determining the value of an individual. Is there not a truer measure of one’s development both physically and intellectually? With all of our testing and measuring, do we not take the risk of “sizing up” our youth against the rest of mankind? Have we ignited the spark of competition? With a little urging, will that spark become a raging fire, sometimes stopping at nothing and consuming everything and everyone in its quest to become the best, the top, the number one? Number one against whom? Their parents? Their friends? Their classmates? Against a faceless list of names from across the land, and beyond, names they will never meet, much less care about. Can’t success be a very personal experience? Won’t each of our students taste of its sweetness, each in his or her own special way? Need they continually worry about how they stack up against everyone else? Rotary Clubs have an interesting values clarification instrument. It is called the Four-Way Test and encourages individuals to ask four simple questions when making decisions: Is it the truth? Is it fair to all concerned? Will it build goodwill and better friendships? Will it be beneficial to all concerned? Should not this be a starting place in our quest for success? Should not our youth pursue the truth, the truth which drives all people to search, a truth so personal they need not look any further than themselves? Is not their challenge then to be the best that they can be? Only they will know their true potential, their true abilities. Should they not forget about comparing themselves with their classmates, their peers, with anyone? Is not their toughest competition themselves? Often it has been said that the only person standing in one’s way to fulfillment of a dream is that individual himself. To overcome self-doubt, to be willing to stand against pressure, to motivate one’s self daily to achieve a goal, should that not be defined as the road to success? Our youth, when adorned in victory or when humbled in defeat, if they know that they have given the very best they could in terms of preparation, desire, drive, and attitude, will not have failed. No one can take away that victory, just as no one can give that victory to them. No one has the power to give them success. While this success is individually achieved, it is often measured by society in terms of the group. A true indication of an individual’s success is measured not by the number of people strewn in that path to success but is marked rather by the number of people who have benefited from that achievement. To stumble to the top over the dreams of those with whom you work and live is not triumph. But to march confidently to the summit with others beside you, that is the time for rejoicing.

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The mirror is a tool used frequently to cleanse the reflection of all physical imperfections and impurities. Why not use that same instrument to purge the likeness of all spiritual, social, and professional blemishes? Our youth, and all of us, should be as good as we can be. But we should do our best . . . for others. Another question to answer is, what is too hard? What does “too hard” mean? Is the challenge too complicated, too big, too long, too costly, too . . . ? Or, does it simply mean that the individual facing the challenge is unprepared, unwilling, or unmotivated to move forward. There is an old saying that the longest trip begins with the first step. John Goodlad used the term obstacle illusions to describe challenges that appeared to be overwhelming but only in the minds of those fearful of taking that first step. THE COST There are several ways to look at the cost of accountability. First, there is the expense of paying attention to quality research such as Tennessee’s Student Teacher Achievement Ratio study. Prior to this work, the research on class size was best described as ambivalent. Some studies reported that smaller class size made a difference . . . but the authors were not certain. Tennessee’s longitudinal study showed, once and for all, that a class size of fifteen students and one teacher made a difference, a big difference, in student achievement. It was important to note that educators could not cheat on this and put thirty students in a classroom with two teachers. It had to be fifteen to one. And, interestingly, those students so advantaged for one year held that benefit over students in a control group after that one year passed. It was sort of a halo effect. Now comes the question, why don’t we see classrooms across the system so populated? The answer is ever so painful. It costs too much. It costs too much to hire the extra teachers; it costs too much to build the extra classrooms; it costs too much to deliver education the way solid research says it should be delivered. This causes any normal-minded educator to question that oft uttered recommendation that we should be making research-based decisions. Blah! That’s only if we can afford these research-based decisions. We are currently making research-based decisions only when they are convenient. And when we can afford them. We must take offense at being told to use a research-based approach to decision-making while, at the same time, being denied the ability to follow through on one sure way to increase student achievement, to follow the Student Teacher Achievement Ratio research.

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There is another way of looking at the cost of accountability. Let’s talk about casualties of the process. Public school educators constantly labor under the pressure of having students perform at a certain level on all kinds of assessments. Remembering No Child Left Behind, every student in every public school was supposed to test on grade level in reading and mathematics by 2014. Even the politicians who wrote that legislation knew that goal was impossible. But, let’s look at it another way. The question to be asked about any national education reform act is, “Will a 100 percent passing rate be acceptable?” Or, is the entire accountable movement an enigma? What would be the public’s response if all students performed at grade level in mathematics and reading during an early year of the reform movement? Would that response be any different now? Can’t you hear the ululating? “They cheated on the test!” or “The bar has been set too low so everyone can pass!” What public educators have needed but have never gotten is to know the level of academic failure that will satisfy the public’s and policymakers’ thirst for rigor and veracity, while proving that our students are sufficiently prepared for their future. Clearly, a 0 percent failure rate will not do that. What is the percent? Does the accountability movement presume that some students will not make the grade, that there must be some academic casualties for the assessments to be sufficiently rigorous? Could accountability be effective in the absence of these academic failures? The point is that the accountability door swings both ways. Not enough students meeting or exceeding the standard causes much public consternation. Ironically, too much student success does the same. There’s more. Public education cannot and will not tolerate a high rate of failure and retention. Imagine what would happen if 20 to 30 percent of high school seniors each year did not graduate and began clogging up high schools’ resources. The same would be true for middle schools and elementary schools. Because of pure resource reasons, students must be moved along. The public talk is tough enough. “We’re going to hold the students accountable!” While these words are echoing through society, plans are already being made to find an alternate route to move those students along. Some states have rules that students may not be retained more than one time from kindergarten through eighth grade. Other states have “bridge initiatives” that help students who cannot make the standard complete their high school experience. The problem with these programs is that students and parents soon find out about them and they see the shallowness of the whole accountability

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movement. There is no accountability for them and they know it. If you don’t believe this, ask them. They will tell you. There exists another, sometimes silent, resource casualty to the accountability movement, time. Howard Nelson authored and the American Federation of Teachers published the report, Testing More, Teaching Less: What America’s Obsession with Testing Costs in Money and Lost Instructional Time in 2013. It asserts that testing may have “spiraled out of control” in the United States. The study analyzed assessment inventories and school calendars of two mid-sized school districts and found the following. Students in heavily tested grades spend between twenty-nine and fifty hours annually taking tests. Students in high stakes testing grades spend between 60 and 110 hours annually in test preparation such as taking practice tests and learning test-taking strategies. (One hundred and ten hours equal one full month of school.) Including the cost of lost instructional time, the estimated annual testing cost per pupil in grades that had the most testing ranged from seven hundred dollars (approximately 7 percent of perpupil expenditures in the typical state) to more than one thousand dollars (approximately 11 percent of per-pupil expenditures in the typical state). If testing were abandoned altogether, one school district in this study could add twenty to forty minutes of instructional time to each day, whereas the other could add almost an entire class period each day for grades six to eleven. The study asserts that these are “conservative estimates.” Or, as a speaker at a National Rural Education Association conference once pointed out, “A cow won’t weigh more if you weigh it more often; you have to feed it sometime!” We are at the corner of the accountability and reality streets in the town of public education. Policymakers are fearful of stepping onto the street, worried that they are going to be run over by the resource taxi. Unless and until this dilemma is solved, we will have no accountability in public schools and all of the talk about accountability is nothing more than that. PARENTS How do you fire a parent? Parental apathy, disinterest, and neglect are running rampant in our society . . . and the policymakers look the other way. Could not benefits be taken from parents who refuse to get involved in their children’s education? Whether it is preferred rental rates, welfare, or some other kind of public assistance, could not that the reduction of a portion of some advantage stimulate parents into caring about their children? This argument falls on deaf ears.

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The accountability movement has strong language about holding everyone, including the people who father our students, those who maintain they are mothering them, and grandparents, aunts, uncles, and the like accountable for student success. Yet, there is literally nothing that holds these significant adults accountable for their shortcomings in terms of getting their children a respectable education. It is important to point out that there are parents who are doing a wonderful job in supporting what public education has to offer. Some are even going beyond. Sadly, these people are numbered in the minority as education just isn’t important in the homes of far too many people. Students know what is important by watching where adults spend their time. If, in fact, parents talk about the importance of school but do nothing to show that importance, those words have no impact on the youth. Our values are demonstrated more by what we do and less by what we say. Most relationships between schools and homes are not even to that level. Despite the advanced technology that exists in today’s world, administrators labor with trying to just make contact with the significant adult when there is a need. Cell phone numbers change when minutes run out; parents do not notify the school of the change; parents use caller ID to screen calls from the school; and if a contact is made, it is often met with profanity or indifference. Anyone who has been involved in administration in public education finds this out within their first week at the school. There is an example of a couple who regularly did not send their son to school and used e-mail to discount the boy’s teacher, counselor, and administrator in the eyes of the district superintendent. The father sent e-mails to the district office telling how the teacher, counselor, and administrator regularly berated the lad and caused him to not want to go to school. This despite the fact that the student, when he did go to school, had countless positive interactions with each of those individuals on a routine basis. The student did not do homework; he did not go to school on test days; he did not bring back to school anything signed by his parents. When the principal called the parents, met them at school when they picked up their son, and sent them an e-mail informing them of a meeting which had been scheduled to develop a plan to prevent the student’s retention, they missed the meeting and follow-up meetings and said they were not aware of them. They demonstrated a perfect example of passive resistance and continued to sensitize the district administration about the alleged shortcomings of the school’s staff, those very people who were working so hard to help their son. Still, and against those odds, the school staff persisted. Educators who labor in the area of special education can easily report of innumerable examples of scheduling Individualized Education Program meetings, with the clock running, only to have parents who said they would

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attend not show up. Bound by a tight window during which plans must be made and shared, another meeting is scheduled; the parent agrees to attend. But, when the date and time comes, there is no parent. That is when the going really gets tough for these educators. Stories abound about how parent behavior compromises student achievement and educators’ efforts. Often, it is finances that come into play. One teacher said a parent told her she did not like children but she would continue to have them because it meant more money. Another teacher remembered how a parent demanded that her child be placed in special education. With no reason to do so, the educator asked why. Because that will get me more money, was the reply. Another challenge facing some parents is inadequate parenting skills. One superintendent received two calls in the same week. They were both from fathers who said they were worried that their children would call Child Protective Services if “they laid a hand on their kids.” Frustrated, they said they did not know what to do. The only skill these parents had was to get physical with their children. When the laws in the state provided more protection for battered children, these fathers gave up . . . to their children’s detriment. One day, a school-level administrator had to deal with two different fights. As he met individually with the combatants and their parents, he remembers each parent saying in front of the child, “I told him to smack anyone who touches him.” One parent went so far as to say she was sending her son to the home of the other student that evening to “finish the job.” Sadly, there are too many instances when parents video their children fighting on the street and putting it on YouTube. Clearly, the values of these parents do not align with those of the school. One morning, a mother put her son on a school bus without giving him his medication. This resulted in his fourth bus referral as he began jumping on the seat, shouting profanity, distracting the driver, and putting everyone’s safety in danger. She admitted it was her fault and responded, when he was suspended from the bus for several days, “You are punishing me, not him. I’m the one who now has to bring him to school and pick him up each day.” Would not the appropriate response to her be, “Yes, you should be punished and you are being punished. Give him his medicine when he is supposed to get it so it won’t happen again.” Another time, on a cold Wednesday in November, a little second grader beckoned for the administrator to come over to him during breakfast. Waving the staff member closer because he had something very important to say, he was not satisfied until the assistant principal was within three inches of his face. Second graders don’t talk loudly in the morning. When within breathing distance, he said, “I threw up in Mommy’s car on the way to school this morning.” Startled would be an understatement to describe the

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administrator’s reaction. He quickly gathered myself and replied, “That’s too bad. How do you feel now?” The student left school early that day. But . . . the damage was done. The next day administrator was dealing with a soaring fever, a growing headache, and nausea that caused him to leave early, missing a graduate class he was supposed to instruct that evening. Friday he took a sick day (that he didn’t want to lose), went to the clinic, was given two shots and three prescriptions, and spent Saturday and Sunday in bed, missing an important reunion gathering on Saturday evening. The question is, should the parent be billed for all of his expenses? It isn’t easy being a parent. One father told his son that it was very easy to father a child but the important and difficult work was being a father to a child. That message still rings clear. Everyone knows that when the teacher, the parent, and the student are working together, that powerful triangle of education, the student’s experience is always better. It is very frustrating, in reality, to know how seldom that experience is actualized. Educators must stop coddling parents, fearful of that inevitable lawsuit. It is not right for a student to curse at, steal from, and otherwise mistreat a teacher yet remain in school, in the same class, because someone is worried about legal retribution from a parent who is unable to control the child. Stimulating parental participation in their children’s education is a challenge for most administrators, particularly when the students move into the secondary schools. That great American philosopher, Yogi Berra, is given credit, while playing for the New York Yankees, for many profound statements. One, in particular, hits a home run with contemporary education and its relationship with the home and the community. “If people don’t wanna come, you can’t stop ‘em,” Berra is said to have postulated in the days when people were not flocking to the House that Ruth Built to see the locals in pinstripes do battle with opposing teams in baseball’s American League. The fear in education is that some may accept Berra’s words as gospel and write off any efforts to forge a link between school and home . . . between school and community. The truth is, if for one reason or another, the family and the general population are unable to come to the schoolhouse door, educators have a never-ending challenge to take the education system into the homes and the community. This may be with the assistance of the written word, the spoken word, or through a variety of programs that may be offered for any number of clubs, agencies, and organizations. Never has this been more necessary as today, when the communities which send students to school are becoming even more diverse. Further, there may be, within our framework of design and scheduling, some flaws which, when corrected, would better involve our citizenry in the

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schooling of our youth. The elimination of conflicts, the offering of programs for people beyond the age of eighteen, and attention to the wants and needs of our citizens will go a long way toward promoting interest and involvement in our schools. This is crucial. Involvement is critical if the education of our youth is to take a direction which is productive and fulfilling for our communities. One wonders how Yogi Berra would react to this. Possibly, by saying something like, “If people wanna have better schools, you gotta involve ‘em.” There are supportive, interested, and engaging parents. We just need more of them. TEACHERS If it is impossible to fire a parent, holding a teacher accountable is not far behind. Why? The local, state, and national teacher unions (that’s what they are; they are not associations) all play major roles in local board of education elections, the elections of major state offices, and, as we have seen in recent years, are major players in national elections, joining forces with like-minded unions to help shape the political landscape of our nation. There is the story of an administrator verbally reminding a teacher of an afternoon meeting the morning of that meeting, and following that up with a written note. Still, offering only an “I forgot,” the teacher failed to show at the meeting. In another instance, during a curriculum meeting, several teachers were complaining vehemently about the lack of resources for some content area, explaining how they needed some identified support immediately. Strapped financially, the principal used a creative plan for finding funds to pay for the resources the next day. She shared this with the complaining teachers and asked them for a detailed list of their needs by the end of that week. Despite weekly reminders, it took her over a month to get the list from the teachers, the list of the resources they complained of needing immediately. A union’s basic role is to preserve the careers of those in its membership, in total and for every single member. That is important to know and it drives union behavior. That behavior manifests itself in every action the union and its representatives take. It shapes the language of local contracts, state laws and regulations, and national initiatives. It enables the flow of grievances, dictates school calendars, causes the stream of resources, helps shape public school decisionmaking processes, and influences the transfer and hiring processes.

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But no area of public school operations is impacted by unionism as is the firing process. Whether it has to do with tenured or non-tenured teachers, state law and regulation, local policy and regulation, grievance and appeal processes, and the like, they have the ability to grind the possibility of teacher terminations down to the point where they are nearly non-existent. Administrators daring to tread on this ground are immediately faced with a mountain of minutia the like of which would cause any seasoned attorney to turn tail and run. If it is possible to wade through the termination process paperwork and not succumb to the countless hours of planning and the untold pounds of documentation, the administrator is next faced with the political reality that the recommendation for termination is likely to fall on deaf ears for any number of political reasons. The language sounds so easy. “We are going to hold teachers accountable.” The reality is that is has not, is not, and will not happen. Not then, not now, not ever. That is the plight of public school administration. What would be the result if teachers were treated the way they treat students. If a student is late to class, there is a penalty; it a student forgets to do an assignment, there is a consequence; if a student . . . , there is a sanction. The answer to this is quite predictable. It is true that there are credible arguments for not holding teachers responsible for high stakes testing results. It is difficult to dispute most of them. However, for the vast and diverse other behaviors that some teachers demonstrate and for which they should be held accountable, the response is clear. That answer is that they are nearly untouchable. No wonder the modicum of teacher terminations that take place each year in every state. Administrators know better than to waste their time, and possibly their careers, embracing the thought that they can invest their time and energy in a process that is destined to push back quickly and do so effectively. There is no teacher accountability on a broad scale in public education. That’s it. It is amazing the work that a lot of teachers are doing in our public schools. They demonstrate a level of commitment, persistence, and creativity unmatched in other vocations to meet some of our culture’s most challenging students and parents. It is also very discouraging the lack of effort, commitment, and dedication that others are allowed to show and continue to pick up a paycheck. Those delinquent educators cast an unfortunate shadow on the rest of their hardworking colleagues. There are many passionate, dedicated, and hardworking teachers laboring in our public schools. It makes one sorrowful to see their reputations being trodden on by those who do not care to do their jobs.

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STUDENTS Students rest in the enviable place in public schooling where they provide nearly all of the data for the high stakes accountability system while caring nothing about it. As noted earlier, for many reasons, students are not held accountable . . . and they know it. Just talk to a couple and it will become clear that they too often are disinterested in this “great equalizer” of our society. Two youngsters were encountered by a middle school principal. It was about 4:12 p.m. He met them at the top of the stairs, two eighth-grade students, one Caucasian and the other African American. Let’s call them Tom and Tykee. The principal had been alerted moments earlier by a teacher that Tom and Tykee were attempting to sneak out of the school’s afterschool program, an initiative designed to provide them and nearly two dozen classmates with one-to-six teacher-to-student tutoring in language arts and mathematics, to improve their chances of being promoted to ninth grade. These students’ grades were suspect, peppered with zeros for not completing classwork or handing in homework. The program also included a robust meal at 5:15 p.m. each day, as well as a twenty-five dollar Walmart gift card at the end of the seventeen-day project for each completer. It was felt that this would be appealing to them and their parents; all were living below the poverty level and identified as Free and Reduced Meal Students. The administrator was intrigued that these students would elect to throw away this last-chance opportunity and asked them to go into a vacant classroom and talk with him about it. He posed the question and waited in silence as the tension mounted. Neither responded after some eighty-seven seconds of wait time. “You can’t give me any idea about why you would not take advantage of this opportunity designed to provide all of this for you?” he gently probed. Again, only a blank stare. It was at this point that he told them he would no longer be the program policeman, but would allow them to walk out if they wanted to. However, he would contact their parents and inform them that their sons had elected to waive this opportunity and remain in eighth grade the following school year. The two students returned to the program for the day. As they left, the principal wondered if they or some of their peers would complete the program. More importantly, he reflected on what conditions would cause students in situations like these to turn their backs on all of the resources directed in their behalf. Motivating students has never been more challenging. Are we finally at the point where policymakers and decision-makers realize so many programs

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outside the school have a tremendous impact on how students act inside school? Are the social programs designed to help those in need demotivating to generations of people, cohorts of whom now are supposed to attend school? As educators languish in their attempts to get students to attend school, to appreciate an education and take advantage of the excellent system available, only to see too many of them and their parents reject the opportunities, could it be a government that extends resources to families for doing nothing that exacerbates this matter? Could we ask if we could capture the thinking in the minds of Tom and Tykee, “Why bother? Why bother with this program, with getting an education? At the end of the day, the check will still come from the government.” There are many people in desperate need of our help. There are others, in a twisted irony, who are victimized by that assistance and will never learn or desire to be independent. Criticizing educators for their inability to motivate people our government has demotivated is a fool’s errand. Both Tom and Tykee dropped out of the program, repeated eighth grade, and are now prime contenders to drop out of high school. Much was made of Wake Forest University’s plan to drop the SAT as part of student entrance requirements. The report, on national television in the fall of 2014, included a statement that, “Some students just don’t test well” and that “That Saturday exam was the worst day of their lives.” Wake Forest had joined hundreds of other institutions of higher education in making this decision. This conjured some interesting thinking on the part of some educators. First, education is an institution reaching students from pre-kindergarten through an undergraduate degree that is sending some profoundly different messages to its stakeholders. Prior to graduation from high school, it is all about the tests, the high stakes assessments. However, once that threshold is breached, high stakes exams are no longer important. What kind of message does this development send to the mind of a sophomore in high school? A second thought comes to mind. Who would want a doctor, an airline pilot, an attorney working with them who “just doesn’t test well”? Life gives people pop quizzes each and every day. Those who can respond well under pressure realize success; those who don’t suffer. Are we not setting up an entire cohort of college students for failure through a decision that may be more about getting more students into the institutions (for money’s sake or for diversity’s sake) than because they earned their spots? The television report included data about how graduation rates for those who had achieved admittance to the institution through their SAT scores were no different than for those who did not use the SAT. We know that there is data and there is data. Would we not like to see the kinds of classes that those

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students took and the kinds of support they received before passing judgment on that claim? Interestingly, this report came out just weeks after the scandal involving the University of North Carolina’s “shadow curriculum” that had abused student athletes for decades had been exposed. This matter was further amplified by the case of the Pennsylvania nursing student who sued Misericordia University after failing a course needed for graduation twice. Claiming that she was suffering from anxiety and depression, she claimed she was denied support for the final exam. Her detractors blasted her, questioning if she would be an appropriate candidate for a nursing degree if the pressure that wilted her for the exam would also cause her to be ineffective during some medical procedure. William Raspberry, once a renowned Washington Post Writers Group columnist, wrote, on May 15, 1989, a piece which fell under the headline, “Make Our Students Work Harder.” Raspberry lamented that efforts that sought to improve public education always seemed to look at schools that did not succeed. He encouraged education reformers to study why some schools were successful. “Maybe it’s the question itself,” he wrote. He continued, Some schools and school districts, and not just the affluent ones, have managed to keep the overwhelming majority of their students in school while raising their performance levels above national norms. Maybe it’s time to stop studying the unsuccessful schools to discover what has gone wrong and take a hard look at the unexpectedly successful ones to see what is going right.

Raspberry continued, describing what he felt reformers would find when looking at successful schools. “My guess: that outlays and reform have very little to do with it; that the good schools are manned by principals who believe (and are able to infect their faculties with the belief) that their children can learn if they work at it.” He believed simply that many of our children weren’t working very hard in school. “The children won’t say that, perhaps don’t even know it. But the amount of work required by some schools is so small that the wonder is that anybody learns very much.” Accompanying the column was a cartoon depicting a “U.S. student” attempting to reach a chalkboard. The chalkboard was supported on two sides, one labeled “indifference,” the other “inefficiency.” Written on the chalkboard were two words, “Ameriken Edukayshon.” True then as it is now, the time has passed when we can afford to not heed Raspberry’s advice. Experience has shown that, particularly with troublesome and reluctant students, educators and parents work to get those students through, one day at a time.

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The emphasis has moved from getting as much as you can out of your educational experience to simply getting out of it. This trend must be reversed. We must move from Ameriken Edukashon and return to the promise of American Education. Two teachers were wondering aloud how they could make a particular assignment, a task, fun for their students. Why did that experience have to be fun. Couldn’t learning in and of itself be motivating, enriching to the students’ future? Could not the thought of students having a better, more fulfilling life after high school, as a result of this new-found information, be stimulating enough? What is unfolding in students’ lives throughout the system? It would seem that our entire society has nothing more than to make our children’s lives fun. From the total gaming experience of videos, to movies, to tabloids, to the use of recreational drugs to amplify their senses, our youth are turning on to life and tuning out to education. If it is not fun and immediate, they are not interested in it. Unfortunately, education tends to be neither. Success for those who take advantage of education is not immediate and the educational experience, in and of itself, often requires effort, persistence, and hard work. It is a small wonder why, having diagnosed the situation in that way, it is a struggle getting students to attend school, to focus on their classwork, and to give real meaning to the experiences we create for them. The competition for students’ attention has become an entire industry. Public schools are poorly equipped to not just win the battle, but to even enter the fray. Students also benefit from the labeling game. We have provided so many labels for them that all they have to do is hold up their label and their behavior is dismissed as being a function of their handicapping condition. A parent once said to a principal that her son’s behavior on the school bus was a result of his attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and that he couldn’t sit still when the bus was in motion. This caused a challenge since the bus could not move if he would not sit. Ironically, the solution, albeit an expensive one, was to provide taxi service for this student because he was labeled as special education and the school had to provide a way for him to get to school. Today, everyone has a label. There is even a new label being touted for those drivers who demonstrate road rage. No doubt, a witty lawyer will use this development in attempt to get his dangerous client “off the hook” in some court case. There exist now so many labels that if you followed anyone around for twenty-four hours a day, that individual would demonstrate a pattern that would warrant a tag. Will it be obsessive compulsive disorder, attention

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deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or demonstrate the characteristics of some other newly defined handicap, one which he or she will be able to use to excuse any deviant and inappropriate behavior to the detriment of those in the vicinity? Is that not the response each time someone commits a crime, taking someone’s life? Why didn’t the mental health industry do a better job with him? Perhaps, rather than blaming the mental health industry, we should simply hold people accountable. When people see that accountability facing them, they will be less likely to engage in activity for which they will be held accountable. To students’ credit, there are some foolish protocols awash in the high stakes testing movement. Forcing English language learners to take the high stakes reading test after being in our country for just one year is one. Having those same students sit and look at the mathematics test for twenty minutes their first year in our country goes beyond the pale. Mandating that students in the hospital submit to the assessment process is over the top. The only student who would be exempt would be one on a respirator! This obsessive compulsive approach to assessment harms students, taints the data, victimizes school reputations, and does not respect the hard work being done by the students’ educators. Nowhere in our culture are there such hard and fast rules about anything. It would be interesting to see how the crafters of this rules and their admonitions would react if we applied them to those people in terms of workplace punctuality, grammatical mistakes in reports, and wasting time. I believe their reaction would be predictable. Sadly, for students, they must sit and take it. Few initiatives have captured the imagination of do-gooders as has the bullying movement. There is no doubt that fortunes have been made and yachts purchased with the money made on training programs, consulting, and books published. Yet, when the data is analyzed carefully, there is really very little bullying going on. In fact, local public school administrators are often chastised for “hiding the facts” about this practice when the number of cases is very small. Reporting incidences of bullying reached the asinine level when, in the fall of 2013, a parent of Western Hills High School called upon school authorities at Aledo High School to investigate the football coaching staff at Aledo High for bullying since those coaches engineered their team to a ninety-one to zero defeat of the parent’s son’s team at Western Hills High. The winners, ranked number one in the Associated Press 4A poll for the country, were averaging seventy points per game. However, the winning coaches “cleared the bench” early in the contest, playing every member of the team, instructed all punt returners to use a fair

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catch when receiving a kick, and asked the game officials to implement a running clock in the second half. Clearly not the substance to warrant a bullying claim, but a claim was filed nonetheless. The fact is that most relationship challenges between two students are even-handed, with two students sparring back and forth attempting to get the upper hand. They are not engaged in bullying. Is there some bullying going on in our public schools? Yes. But it is at the level that defies being courted by the resources being thrown at it. And, often, when it is uncovered, the very government that warns administrators to correct it throws insurmountable obstacles to prevent that correction. Here is a case in point. It shows the absurdity of public school administrators attempting to follow policy, work within regulations, provide for a safe school, and do so absent the resources to accomplish the task. Also, this is an example of supporting a generality with a distinction. Sadly, what follows is more likely to happen than not. An elementary assistant principal was presented with a completed bullying form. It contained information that George, a third-grade student, had been bullying Robert, also a third-grader but in another class. The details included information that George had also been harassing Ginger, another third-grade student in a third class. The assistant principal conducted an investigation, interviewed the alleged victims and witnesses, talked with the alleged perpetrator, and came to the conclusion that the bullying was present, and had been ongoing since the second grade by George against both Robert and Ginger. He formulated a response, which was a non-contact order, shared it with George in the presence of the school counselor, contacted all three students’ parents to inform them what had taken place, and hoped for the best. The best did not result. The very morning after the plan was communicated and put into effect, George attempted to make contact with Ginger at the beginning of school. George’s teacher, attempting to follow the plan, intervened. George became so enraged that he kicked the teacher and the assistant principal was called to the room. As the assistant principal was attempting to escort George from the room, George attempted to assault him as well. Since George had made contact with a teacher, a five-day out-of-school suspension was in order. However, since George had already been suspended out of school for two days for hitting a student, since George was a special education student, since George’s behavior is a manifestation of his handicapping condition, since there is a ten-day annual limit on the number of days George could be suspended, and since this was early January, the assistant principal opted for a two-day suspension and called George’s mother to come to school and take him home.

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She refused to come in. The assistant principal contacted the visiting teacher who recommended that the town police be contacted. The assistant principal, two representatives from the town police department, and the visiting teacher gathered in the office and placed a conference call to George’s mother. She still refused to come get George. She told the visiting teacher that the police could take George if they wanted. She was tired of dealing with him. The visiting teacher told the police that they could not take George from the school. The assistant principal told the mother that George would be suspended from school the following day. George spent the rest of that day in the assistant principal’s office. George was a bully; George was a danger to the school; George had protection; the assistant principal had no resources to provide for George’s safety and that of the rest of the students and adults at the school. George was not the only issue which the assistant principal had to deal with that day. Accountability? Not for George or for his mother. Bullying? Not a problem. School safety? Not a concern for this parent. And, most of all, it was the policies and regulations at the federal and state level that caused this matter to unfold the way it did. Another example of this misguided infatuation deals with the least restrictive environment rainbow that is illuminated over every public school. The reality is that a very small group of students usurps the time, the people, and the funding from a major portion of the student body. It is difficult to argue against all students having a “Free and Appropriate Public Education,” but the reality is that it isn’t an education at all and tossing the school’s resources at it is inexcusable and wasteful. In addition, what about the “Free and Appropriate Public Education” being denied to the classmates of these students presenting this difficult behavior? This is another example of a generality being hit with a distinction. Sammy was a kindergarten student. He was identified as special education with a variety of needs. A typical day for Sammy started when he got off the school bus and ate his breakfast. Soon after breakfast is when the daily action started with Sammy . . . each day. He had logged just four discipline referrals (remember that he was a kindergarten student) by early November. He could have had one each day. The referrals were for failure to obey the bus rules, fighting on the bus, and hitting his instructional assistant on the head causing her lip to bleed. The final one was the result of his throwing a rock and hitting a classmate just below the right eye, tossing another rock into another student’s groin, and reloading for a third toss but the teacher was able to snag him before anyone else was hurt. Again, because Sammy was identified as special education and the ten-day annual out-of-school suspension rule was in effect, the assistant principal had

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to be judicious with respect to how to handle Sammy’s behavior. Magnifying this challenge was that Sammy had been suspended from the school bus one day for each of his indiscretions on the bus. But, since Sammy’s mother did not bring him to school on the days he was suspended from the bus, those days were counted as if Sammy had been suspended from school. The school has assigned one classroom assistant whose only job was to work one-on-one with Sammy, who had not yet mastered verbal communication even at the lowest level. Regularly, because of Sammy’s profound inappropriate behavior, the classroom teacher and the assistant principal were called to help the classroom assistant. Sammy required redirection constantly every ten to fifteen seconds. He threw materials in the classroom; he ran out the classroom; he attempted to run out of the school; he would demonstrate regular behavior that required constant adult redirection. Too often, he ran through the school, causing a disturbance and would require several adults to contain him. He was unable to sit on the carpet in the classroom or remain in a chair for even a short period of time. With respect to any academic work, that was non-existent. When Sammy was in class, he didn’t participate, he struggled to understand what was taking place, and he frequently disturbed others. The fact that he was constantly “on the run” only served to undermine any attempts to provide him with even the most basic academic foundation. The questions are: What good was Sammy getting out of his “least restrictive environment” setting? What was he taking from his classmates and the rest of the school? In the pay-off and trade-off world that is public education with finite resources, how can this be allowed to happen? Truly, Sammy’s behavior was not his fault. He was a five-year-old boy with a lot going on. Is this the picture of accountability that our public wants of our public schools for our students? Hardly. One superintendent worked hard with the state business, industry, and education alliance to try to get their support to have business contact high schools to ask about students’ academic work, their attendance, and their behavior. The reasoning was that students often see school and the real world as two different planets, with no connections between them. Principals, counselors, and teachers regularly tell students that they should try their best at school because, when they graduate, someone will be calling to see how they did. Students quickly learned that that call never came. The reasoning was simple. If a student learned from a friend that the friend did not get the job because the company called the school and discovered some inappropriate choice or behavior the friend demonstrated, that would spread like wildfire through the school. He couldn’t wait to hear students clamoring, “It really happened; they called; Harry didn’t get the job because . . .”

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Also, this would minimize the grumbling he constantly heard from business owners that took some form of “Why can’t you teach your students to be on time,” “Is it so hard to teach them to be responsible,” or what have you. Regularly he responded that if they would just call the school, they could find all of this out even before they would interview the student. Sadly, he couldn’t get them to bite on this initiative. It took too much time, they were worried about lawsuits, they couldn’t get through to the school, they lamented. He even worked to have a fax machine installed in every high school counseling office in the state, but the business owners still wouldn’t contact the schools. The business people did not participate. Accountability for students is not happening. Sadly, they know it and don’t care about the impact their academics, their attendance, and their behavior has on school ratings. That’s too bad. There are no bad students, just bad decisions. Think about students at the earliest levels of our school system coming to school having experienced the first and most important value-orientation years of their lives in the most deplorable conditions. It will become more and more difficult to reshape their behavior. What they are and how they behave is being shaped and reinforced in living conditions that simply should not exist. We are beginning to see the damaging impact of those situations more and more in our schools as each day passes. There are plenty of students who take advantage of everything public schools have and more. Sadly, they are victimized by a growing multitude of classmates who couldn’t care less about anything their schools have to offer yet use them as marketplaces to peddle everything they can, legal or not. REINFORCEMENT GONE ASTRAY One strategy often used to entice students to “stay the course” in schools is the use of reinforcement for positive behavior, for appropriate decisionmaking. However, there are two forces at work in society and in our schools which may be the cause for why some critics are taking aim at this practice. First, as any educator or behavioral scientist will assert, there is a need to “stroke” our students, to provide for them “warm fuzzies,” to subscribe to that age old adage, “sugar is better than vinegar.” Accentuating the positive, highlighting the good that is done by students, and focusing on praise and reinforcement have all become important factors in our daily strategies of motivation. They are fundamental principles of the Positive Behavior Incentive Systems.

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Add to that the fact that our society has been going through, for the past three decades, a significant and profound materialistic process, and you have the potential for what some critics of reinforcement feel is a dangerous development in our schools. Advertisements, the media, and other stimuli are pressuring our youth to maintain an “I want it and I want it now” stance with regard to possessions and other symbols of wealth and success in our culture. Many influences have fueled this impatient desire to the point where crime and drugs have become an ever-present part of our lives. Mix these two forces and you have a stream (in some schools) of prizes, tokens, and food being showered on students for every movement they make or don’t make. Outspoken questioners of this practice have shared their ideas for decades. One was Paula Skreslet, a professor of English at the College of Idaho, a liberal arts school affiliated with the United Presbyterian Church who, in a November 30, 1987, edition of Newsweek, blasted the practice in an article entitled, “The Prizes of First Grade.” “In the first ten days of the school year,” she wrote, “My triplets brought home the following from their first grade classes: one candy bar, one peanutbutter-and-chocolate-chip cookie, two bags of popcorn, two ‘Very Important Person’ badges, three ‘Constitutional Knowledge’ stickers, one ‘I know the Alphabet’ award, two drawing prizes, [thirty-one] Nature Trail tickets, nine Lincoln play dollars, several music awards, some library awards, ‘Neater Eater’ awards, playground behavior awards, and innumerable scratch and sniff stickers, stamps, stars, and smiley faces. What an introduction to the Lincoln (Idaho) School’s positive incentive program!” Skreslet was very troubled that her children reaped such benefits by merely being themselves . . . and for behavior that should be expected in society. Certainly, it is well known that all parents do not prepare their children for their interaction with others as well as Skreslet and others might, but her point is well taken. “Why is it necessary,” she quizzed, “to buy minimal cooperation of children with rewards and treats? Are students so materialistic, so unmotivated, and lazy that they will not learn without a bribe? “What is new to me, what I question so philosophically, is the idea that good behavior must be reinforced so systematically that, without tangible incentives, first graders won’t return their library books when due. Or they won’t learn the alphabet without stickers, stars, and candy bars.” Compounding Skreslet’s bewilderment was the fact that the then secretary of education visited Lincoln School in 1986 and presented the staff with a plaque for being an exemplary elementary school, an honor given to just 270 grade schools in the country for that year.

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“Yet I’m afraid that, with the best of intentions,” she pointed out, “the school may be my adversary instead of my ally. If children are taught to behave decently because they will profit from it, I wonder what principle will guide them as adults when they see how easy it is to profit from wrong behavior.” Reinforcement gone astray or simply bad timing on the part of the two forces pressuring those who work in our schools? Certainly, as with all programs implemented for the sake of our children, this process must continue to be evaluated as well as planned and implemented. It has been nearly thirty years since Skreslet’s article was published. The idea of using praise and reinforcement has continued to unfold in elementary and secondary schools across the land. ADMINISTRATORS There is one group that has been totally and completely captured by the accountability movement. They are the public school school-level administrators. School principals don’t want problems; they don’t make problems, but they own all of the school’s problems. It takes a peculiar, some may say spectacular, kind of effort to stay on the leadership side of their responsibilities, even more so for them to remain focused on academics rather than the rest of matters that come speeding toward them day in and day out. Some researchers say that school principals have only seven minutes of contemplative thought before the next issue comes to their office. They are told to be omnipresent in their schools, yet somehow conquer the daily mountain of paperwork that must be completed. Principals must be skillful in all curricular matters, professional development, staffing, school law, state policy and regulations, communication, public relations, parental involvement, technology, time management, setting priorities, vision creation and sustaining, budgeting, scheduling, attendance, student behavior, special education, politics, and more. Is it any wonder why a new dynamic is beginning to unfold in public education more often than not? There are a growing number of situations where a principal position (particularly high school) is posted and no applications are received. Some people are bewildered by this new phenomenon. They shouldn’t be. Anyone who has ever been a principal or knows someone who is can easily relate to why people are not applying. Also, in the field of public education, the high school principalship has the highest divorce rate of any position in the profession.

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Principals are accountable for staff and student attendance, for student behavior, especially that relating to expulsions and out-of-school suspensions, for dropout rates, and for retention data. They have a plethora of academic data streams tugging at them including, but not limited to, benchmark scores, state tests, local assessments, Lexile scores, DIBELS data, SAT scores, Advanced Placement exam results, NAEP data, ACT scores, IB participation, and the like. It is truly endless. In addition to above, the principal must be able to somehow manipulate apathetic students, uncaring teachers, and non-supportive parents in such a way as to stimulate their behavior so test scores will improve. That is no small task! Certainly, this is the most drastic predicament. There are students who are interested, teachers who care, and parents who are supportive. It is easy to see why, when all of those conditions are present, the test scores soar. But what if one or more of them is absent from the instructional equation? As the principal looks around for a resource to change these conditions, all too often he or she finds none. As has already been discussed, parents cannot be fired, students know they are not being held accountable, and teachers have the protections of law, policy, and regulation. Only the principal stands alone, facing the accountability. When the scores come back, and the school is deemed unsuccessful, it is the principal who is held accountable. Watching National Football League quarterbacks perform and listening to analysts provide their spin afterward can leave one with a headache. Using data dealing with the signal-callers’ pass completion and incompletion statistics and their total yardage for a game can leave you with one perception of the players’ games if you didn’t watch them but a completely different discernment if you did. For instance, a pass may have been thrown perfectly to a receiver who dropped it, causing an incompletion; an extremely poor pass may have been captured after an acrobatic catch by a receiver, resulting in a completion. Another badly thrown spiral may have resulted in another incompletion except that a defensive penalty wiped out that error. Passing yardage may also present differently than experienced. Was the eighty-seven-yard reception the result of the pigskin traveling some sixtythree yards through the afternoon sunlight or after a paltry two-yard toss was caught and carried the rest of the way? Yards after catch is now becoming a part of National Football League nomenclature. Professional football aficionados also understand the important of balance in an offensive game plan. Having several running backs who can “tote the pigskin” effectively will make it much easier to implement the passing game.

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Also, the play of the offensive line is crucial in granting the quarterback sufficient time to survey the field, find the appropriate receiver, and deliver the ball. A poor performance by the “men in the trenches” will likely result in a sub-par performance from the quarterback. National Football League franchises are well aware of this. They spend inordinate amounts of money and time searching for and signing quality quarterbacks and then repeat that process to surround those quarterbacks with excellent receivers, ball carriers, and athletic linemen. Not until the entire team is assembled does the franchise have a chance of making it to the Super Bowl. Is this analogous to how school systems build a team around a principal? To ask that question is to answer it. First, most school systems cannot recruit the top receivers and running backs. If they are the school’s students, the principal has what the community sends to the door each day. One cannot discount the impact of differing cultural capital on student test scores, attendance, and behavior. Yet, when it comes time to hold the principal accountable, that context is rarely part of the formula. If the offensive linemen are the teachers, the principal inherits this component of his team as well. Teachers may be passionate about serving students, they may be high-quality planners, they may be expert in delivering content, or they may not be. Making changes in the school’s offensive line is a timeconsuming, challenging, and frustrating process. Yet, the performance of that portion of the “team” plays a major role in the principal’s accountability. The point is this. Contrary to popular wisdom, numbers are not objective. Data gathered which deals with student academic performance, attendance, and behavior and used without consideration of the context in which the data is produced is like making an assumption of a quarterback’s ability without ever watching the games. It is a fool’s errand and subjects too many hardworking, dedicated, and effective principals to unfair and inappropriate scrutiny and errant accountability. Principals have only one recourse: to place the highest priority on selecting only the very best people to staff their schools. How easy it is, during a quiet summer day, for them to be conducting interviews for a teaching position and forget the short- and long-term and profound implications of that decision they will make. If that teaching position is one of only three seventh-grade language arts position in the middle school, a mistake will be costly, not just in terms of the effective delivery of instruction, school morale, program recover, and staff cohesiveness. The image of the school may be change drastically as one-third of the seventh-grade class succumbs to the rigor of a high stakes assessment required for promotion to the eighth grade.

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How deeply entrenched in the mind of the principal is the matter of staffing decisions and the vital consequences those decisions have on high stakes testing? Do principals understand that staffing and accountability are inextricably intertwined? They must know this. The ability of principals to soften the negative impact of a staffing choice gone awry is a function of school size, available resources, and creativity on the part of those impacted. So much better it is to fully understand the dramatic ramifications of the appointment in the first place and complete the process with appointment of a quality member of the staff. There are times when the ability to sustain staff unravels beyond the ability of the principal to prevent it. The successful candidate may experience an unexpected and untimely hardship preventing the move into the position. A teacher may become ill and a long-term absence is necessary; the position would have to be filled with a substitute. A teacher’s spouse may be suddenly transferred to a position in another state and the family may have to relocate in a very short period of time. Or, there may be a premature and unanticipated retirement in the middle of the year. Depending on the process used for securing replacements and the availability of candidates, that new opening may cause a tear in the accountability initiatives of the school that no professional development or curriculum reform can prevent or repair in time to salvage the scores of the students impacted. Another point about staffing. The principal should demand control over who is selected for his or her school. Allowing internal transfers of sub-par teachers from other schools, having district-level staff select new hires, and any other process that brings to the school teachers who the principal has not selected adds an element of unknown to the process and creates an easy path for problems for the principal. If the principal is to be held accountable, and he or she is, give him or her the opportunity to select his or her own team. Despite all of the accountability rhetoric, it is solely the principal who is held firmly to the standard. While the principal is working feverishly to provide for credible curricular choices and effective instructional delivery, he or she is also forced to respond to the vast array of other conditions that are found at the door. Every system is perfectly created to get the results that it does. Placing principals in conditions such as these nearly guarantees that they will be unsuccessful. Most are hardworking educators, with a passion for public education. Most are dedicated to their schools, creative with their budgets, and willing to put in too many hours. Most have the curricular background and instructional knowledge. Yes, there are administrators policing our public schools who should be replaced. They cause harm beyond our ability to measure it. There are,

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however, too many others who are victimized, despite their valiant efforts to support students, engage parents, and develop teachers. Too many of our principals are unsuccessful for lack of support. HIGHER EDUCATION There are many ways to consider accountability for institutions of higher education when it comes to public schools. One could ask how many of what kinds of teachers are prepared for what kinds of certifications and what is their level of competency. Another question one could ask is why so many undergraduates receive degrees in areas where their marketability is questionable. Tenured university staff must have students in their classes, but it is deplorable to have students spend four years in college and end up with a degree in physical education for which job placement is limited at best. Cannot those students get a special education certificate to make them more marketable? In response to teacher shortages in some areas, states have adopted “alternative routes to certification” initiatives which many long-time educators feel have polluted the ranks of the profession. Providing an individual with a teaching credential simply because he or she can pass a content test will do little to determine whether he or she will be successful in the profession. There is so much more that takes place in classrooms besides impacting content on students. Other critics claim this practice belittles the profession by discounting the quality work that many teachers accomplish and quality experiences they collect in their pre-service education. Should not a process be developed in higher education which identifies students who are ill-suited for work in public schools before they arrive at the student teaching experience? Reflecting on four plus decades in public education, one administrator cannot remember a single student teacher who was purged from the profession as a result of the student teaching experience. Does that mean that all student teachers were suited to lead a classroom? Absolutely not! However, at that point in their undergraduate experience, it appeared unlikely that they would be denied a degree. We all want to avoid the scenario where a new teacher candidate is certified, qualified, . . . and terrified. Discussion also needs to be had regarding the best model for serving students in educational leadership graduate classes, a face-to-face format, total online instruction, or a combination of the two in a hybrid model. It is possible for some students at some universities to complete the entire of their graduate work in educational leadership utilizing coursework in only the electronic arena.

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Indeed, this conversation needs further amplification. It received such in an earlier chapter. Another debate deals with college-driven research that is foisted on public school educators who fail to see the logic in that research. Is it because those who are making the recommendations did not experience the reality of the classroom experience? This disconnect between research and practice can be seen in another way: who gets published in professional education journals. There are colleges and universities who do an excellent job of preparing students to enter the teaching profession, or do admirable work forging partnerships with local schools to fashion excellent and appropriate research to meet those schools’ needs. There needs to be more of them. During the year ending in June of 2006, one school administrator collected data from eight different journals which he read regularly. They were The Kappan, Principals of Leadership, Middle Ground, Educational Leadership, The School Administrator, The Journal of Staff Development, The NASSP Bulletin, and The American School Board Journal. He wanted to see who was penning the articles contained in these publications, each of which enjoyed widespread readership by those laboring in public schools. He tracked the journals from September through June and counted 950 articles published between their covers. These articles were written by 1,213 different authors. Some articles had multiple authors. Next, he determined whether the author was a college or university professor or student, a school district employee, a member of the staff of a national education association staff, a consultant/researcher (not affiliated with a college of university), or “Other” (someone who was retired, a freelance writer, etc.). There were only 270 articles written or cowritten by people working in schools. Perhaps a reason for this is that administrators and teachers have little time left for sharing their work or their feelings with others. This accounted for 22 percent of the articles published. The remaining 78 percent were written by people not currently working in schools or by some who had never experienced what it was like to stand in front of twenty-seven high school sophomores and begin a discussion about history or some other topic. Leading the way were the college or university professors and students with 409 articles published. This was 34 percent. Understanding that there is pressure for tenured professors to get published adds a sense of reasonableness to this data. Still, it points out that a lot of guidance is given to practicing educators from people who have distanced themselves from the very educational experience they hope to change. There are examples of models in higher education that do an excellent job in pre-service training for teachers and that offer superb graduate programs for practicing educators. There must be more of them.

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THE LANDMARK ATLANTA PUBLIC SCHOOL CHEATING SCANDAL It is difficult to not cringe when reflecting on the debacle that was the Atlanta public school cheating scandal. Eleven educators were convicted of violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law on April 1, 2015. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Jerry W. Baxter urged the convicted educators to accept an offer from the prosecutors that would have allowed them to avoid extensive time behind bars. All they had to do was take responsibility for their actions, apologize, and waive their rights to appeal. Only two accepted. While one was to be sentenced in August, the other eight were sentenced to time in prison and fines, with regional supervisors Sharon Davis-Williams, Michael Pitts, and Tamara Cotman, each getting the harshest sentences, seven years behind bars, thirteen years of probation, and each a twenty-five thousand dollar fine. What followed was an appeal for leniency from the likes of Andrew Young, the civil rights leader, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and former Atlanta mayor. In a major turn of events, Baxter relented and on April 30 reduced the sentences to three years in prison, seven years of probation, a ten thousand dollar fine, and two thousand hours of community service. Our children are watching and our culture breathes a deep sigh of regret as another act of accountability is reduced to the level where it really doesn’t matter. Is this any different than fining a professional football team one hundred thousand dollars for tampering with another team’s employee? Will it stay the tide of ethical abuse on the part of those who continue to push the envelope on our culture’s values? To ask that question is to answer it. Of course it won’t. And, it opens the door to more acts of malfeasance on the part of those educators willing to take the risk for what may be a “slap on the hand.” In terms of risk and reward, the door has just been opened a bit wider. SCENARIO It was early June when the scores came back from the state’s high stakes testing program. Principal Sal Manella had dreaded the day. He knew the scores were going to show academic holes in his middle school. Even worse, he had been challenged by his superintendent, Frank Lee, to show dramatic improvement in both mathematics and reading. “Let me be clear about this Sal,” Lee said, “If I don’t see these scores improving next year, I’m going to have to make a change in the principal position at this school.”

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Manella talked with the district’s director of secondary education, Seymour Grades, about the matter. “As I analyzed your data,” Grades explained, “I didn’t see enough formative assessment going on. You need more of that, before the summative assessment, the high stakes test, so you can interject an intervention to change how your students are moving. You want to get them to improve much faster. “I’ve talked with our budget department to set aside some funds for you to do this. Go down there and talk with them about it today.” Manella’s discussion with the district’s budget director, Penny Pincher, didn’t leave him feeling too well. She allotted five thousand dollars for Manella to improve the scores. “Everything’s tight these days,” Pincher pointed out. “I had to take this money from our elementary schools. They aren’t going to be happy about that. It’s all we can afford. Good luck.” The weary school administrator took the news back to his school improvement committee. The membership didn’t take it too well but decided to meticulously analyze the data and develop a plan that would take their school out of the “Under Review” designation. “We’ve got the get this going as soon as possible,” quipped Ginger Snap, who seemed always in a hurry to get things done, if not with fidelity. “Not so fast,” warned I. B. Normal, a parent on the committee. “I would rather we do this carefully than quickly.” Counselor Summer Scule had another idea. “If we can give them extra time, possibly in June, July, and August, they won’t fall behind like this year when September comes.” Manella and his confederates pored over the data, looking for a hint at what might work best. “Look at this,” he finally said, after a week of study. “I’ve identified about two dozen students at each of the three grade levels who were within five points of making the standard. It looks like they were very close in both mathematics and reading.” “Let me see something,” Scule responded. After inspecting the list of students, she added, “Over half of these students belong in two or more cells. They are either African American and Free and Reduced Meal Students, Hispanic and Special Education, or Caucasian and English language learners, or more. If we can move them forward just a little, our percentage will move to the point where we will have met the standard as a school.” That thinking energized the group. They began another analytical journey to uncover which concepts in mathematics and reading the students were weak on in terms of the state test. Next came a plenary session that matched the five thousand dollars with the plan. Finally, the proposal was sent to Grades for his approval. The director’s reaction wasn’t quite what the committee had anticipated. “What about the students who are really struggling? Are you going to ignore

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them?” Grades quizzed. “How can you ethically dispose of those students who need the help the most?” Frustrated and confused, Manella shared this development with his committee. After the initial emotional response concluded, Normal suggested that Manella consult a close friend, who is an educational theorist, to craft a rebuttal to Grades so their proposal has an easier path to acceptance. Manella came to you. What do you tell him and why? What rationale do you suggest to give the plan the traction it needs in the eyes of the director? How do you caution him to proceed if he encounters an adamant Grades who refuses to budge on this matter?

Chapter 7

The Achievement Gap

One of the most popular topics of discussion involving public education is the achievement gap. Politicians and policymakers at both the federal and state levels get euphoric when this euphemism is mentioned. Why euphemism you ask? Because the more logical term may be the “stench of poverty.” Fenwick English explains this very well when he points out that the cultural capital of students living in poverty (Free and Reduced Meals Students [FARMS]) is much different than that of the doctorate-level educators who write the high stakes tests. There are plenty of examples of how city students can’t understand the term acre or rural students don’t understand what a subway is. Those, however, are simple examples of an issue that runs much deeper. When you get into abstract terms in either mathematics or reading, and students of poverty see those for the first time on a high stakes assessment, they have no resources on which to draw to help them muddle through the problem. A simple example of this that was profound in Delaware where one administrator served as a director of secondary education at a local school district. After the test, students often self-report about how they felt they measured up. After this March state assessment, students who participated in the eighthgrade mathematics assessment were sharing their thoughts about how they did. In general, they claimed they were very successful on the test. On one question, however, they felt they struggled. It had to do with the concept of a circle graph. The circle graph is one strategy for dealing with data analysis. However, the state curriculum used only the term pie chart. And, that was how it was taught in the curriculum, as a pie chart. Confronted with this new and different concept, a circle graph, for the first time on the high stakes test caused these FARMS to not do well on that question and compromised their confidence for another two or three questions. 107

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How many students were victimized by that trick in assessment language? How many of those students just missed meeting the state eighth-grade mathematics standard? How many schools, because of their high rates of FARMS, also succumbed to this underhanded tactic in high stakes assessment? For that reason, English points out, students should never encounter a new concept for the first time on a state assessment. That’s cheating the students, he says. That’s why he feels that everything on the test should be included in the written curriculum and everything on the written curriculum should be taught to the students. Who could argue with that? Those who argue you shouldn’t teach to the test take umbrage with it. However, that is the adult world. If you want a driver’s license, if you want to sell real estate, if you want to study law, if you want to fly a plane, if, if, if. The strategy is to find out what is on the test, get a study guide and take a course to teach you what is needed to pass the test, and apply what you have learned to the test. If it works for adults, why can’t we use it with students? A sufficient number of African American students outperform their Caucasian classmates further supporting the thinking that the achievement gap really isn’t about ethnicity but other factors, a major one being income level. The reality is that the achievement gap is more a realization that students coming from different socio-economic cohorts do differently on high stakes tests. The reality also is that there are more African American students found on the lower end of the socio-economic scale than Caucasians. Hence the impact of cultural capital on student achievement. Fix the poverty problem and the results will change. It is not just a public school matter. Another factor having a profound impact on the achievement gap is the attitude of students participating in the testing experience. Some simply don’t care about the assessment; they understand that it really does not have any role in their lives, either as students or as members of our society after they complete their formal school experience, in whatever form that takes. Others do care . . . they care about not wanting to do well. Their values, and the values of their families, are not aligned with the prevailing leaders of the educational reform movement. Until and if policymakers and officeholders confront the reality of this development on the part of a segment of our student population, efforts by educators to motivate these students will be futile at best. SELECTIVE PERCEPTUAL DISPLACEMENT Staying on this topic, let’s look at it another way. Why does the achievement gap deal with the split between Caucasian and African American students? Why not the difference between Asian and Caucasian students? There is



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some fertile ground to be sowed there and perhaps answer a very perplexing challenge: why do some ethnicities appear to do better on high stakes assessments than do others? There are numerous available examples of differences based on ethnicity. What about the dearth of African American swimmers and snow skiers? How come there aren’t more Caucasians playing in the National Football League’s defensive secondary or on the National Basketball Association’s teams? Can’t there be more African Americans playing on National Hockey League teams? How many Caucasians were selected in the top forty picks of the National Football League’s April 30, 2015, draft? The point could be made over and over. Focusing purely on the educational arena, what about the challenges Native American and Haitian students continue to have when compared to their Caucasian counterparts with respect to academic achievement? What about comparing the Hispanic dropout rate with that of their Asian classmates? Again, it could go on and on. Why this infatuation with Caucasian and African American students with respect to their work on high stakes tests in public education? Why this single act of selective perceptual displacement, this intentional focus on just one example of differences between two different ethnic groups? Could it have more to do with the cultural assimilation process than anything else? Any test made by man is made biased by man. That certainly adds much more weight to the argument about the impact of cultural capital on test results. It is important to note, at this point, that cultural capital is not measured in terms of more or less; it is simply different. Every person has the same amount; it is just a compilation of that individual’s entirety of whole life experiences until the time it is analyzed. It is changed as each act of stimulation is experienced. However, as we are born pretty much value-free, the earliest experiences are the most important in terms of shaping our view of the world. Every following experience is measured against the sum total of those that preceded it. After about five years, as Morris Massey points out, it takes a powerful experience (he calls it a significant emotional event) to alter our view of the world. Perhaps looking into what is taking place in the homes of these children before they access their formal schooling can help us more clearly understand the challenges they face in school. That also may provide the means to some positive change before these children enter their first school. These values are included in our cultural capital. Our culture, while it is beginning to change, is basically a Euro-Caucasian culture. Some in some minority groups reject that totally or in part. That being the case, why would they want to embrace an educational process that forces them to change what

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they believe deep in the fiber of their being? Mix into this the high level of emotional association with the history of interactions between African Americans and Caucasians in our country, and it is easy to see why this is such an important matter. If you don’t believe that there is a high level of emotion associated with the interactions between African Americans and Caucasians in our country, you must have slept through most of the fall of 2014 and the winter and spring of 2015. Herbert Kohl wrote best about this phenomenon in his book, I Won’t Learn From You! He said, “To agree to learn from a stranger who does not respect your integrity causes a major loss of self. The only alternative is to not-learn and reject that stranger’s world.” There is still one more point to consider. Because of the educational system’s inability to accurately identify the role of the Haitian students’ impact on this matter and since their scores are mixed with those of African American students, the data used to analyze any progress made in this area is compromised by design. That’s too bad and causes us to deal with it through a fact-free debate. DIVERSITY TRAINING AND CULTURAL WORKSHOPS As a result of state regulations or local initiatives, administrators have attended a number of diversity training programs and participated in a sufficient number of multi-cultural workshops. The design and implementation of these professional development opportunities is fairly standard. Typically, all of the administrators in a local district are gathered together, challenged with examples of inequities of the racial kind in their school system, provided with some opportunities for reflection, and given time to brainstorm to identify strategies to correct the problems. Too often the experience has been that too many left feeling insulted; they don’t like being talked down to, as if they have no idea about race relations, that they are part of the problem because of the color of their skin. Because of the very real pressure of political correctness, hardly ever is there an objection lodged about these kinds of tactics by consultants. It’s like that old axiom of the “cat being judged by the mouse jury.” While this has not been true for all such workshops, for too many it has. It is difficult to develop, implement, and evaluate plans due to this political correctness and participants not wanting to hurt others’ feelings by speaking what is truly on their minds. As a result, the courageous conversations just don’t take place, bombastic pontification and rhetoric rule the day, and the matter continues, uncorrected. There exists a lot of posturing, obligatory



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presentations and articles, but really very little of any value dedicated to closing the achievement gap. As Jack Nicholson said in A Few Good Men, “You can’t handle the truth!” How appropriate that could be to the matter of the achievement gap. What is the truth? It happens to be whatever people want it to be. Is racism alive and well in our culture? You bet. Is there such a concept as institutional racism in schools? Absolutely! The problem is that these training sessions often do more to harden the racism that exists in some individuals while not dealing with the deeply held feelings that some people have. In addition, it is offensive to people who are working hard to combat this challenge in public education. But, they are nice strategies to use to give the appearance that education can do something about which our culture has struggled for hundreds of years. Trite . . . and ineffective. Are their models of effective cultural training workshops to be experienced? Surely. It’s too bad there aren’t more of them. The most effective advice in closing the achievement gap comes from the mind of Larry Bell, a short-time educational administrator turned consultant. He offers practical ideas about how to help parents whose educational skills are lacking to support their children. However, his advice applies best to those on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, not specifically race. But, as noted earlier, since there exists a preponderance of African American students at that end of the scale, his strategies do make a difference with respect to the achievement gap. The challenge is to get parents to make use of these skills. THE REALITIES OF RACE Public school educators have a particularly difficult challenge to face when it comes to the matter of race. They work to integrate schools whose children come from segregated communities; they work to integrate school programs and opportunities for children who often see the entire of their out-of-school life through the prism of race. Their parents are less likely to join multi-racial groups, Sunday is the most segregated day of the week, and funerals are still the finality of a racial experience. The length of the school day averages some seven hours. The day is twenty-four hours long. That means educators have only a third of each day to work against a push back that is twice as long. It isn’t easy, but progress is being made. Columnist David Person, an African American Southerner who hosts WEUP Talk on WEUP 94.5 FM/1700 AM in Huntsville, Alabama, and who

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is a 2013 Marquerite Casey Foundation Journalism Fellow and member of USA Today’s Board of Contributors, wrote, in the fall of 2014, an interesting piece entitled “Talking about Race not the Same as Being a Racist.” He explained how Brad Paisley’s comment at the County Music Association Awards, “If you were looking for Black-ish tonight, yeah, this ain’t it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy White-ish,” was, as Person said, “Far from being racist, what Paisley said was funny, brave, and true.” He continued, “Paisley’s joke is a great example of the confusion many people have about the difference between talking about race and being racist. Pointing out a perception of a white-ish music genre or a black-ish television show isn’t racist. But telling a major African American singer that he should leave country music to ‘white folks’ is. And that’s what a fan tweeted to Rucker [African American country music star Darius Rucker] last year.” Like all values, attitudes about race are embedded in children at a very early age. Babies are not born with the ability to see one ethnicity as better or worse than another. That is a taught attitude. By the time these children reach the schoolhouse door, that attitude is drummed into their psyche over and over as a result of what has happened to them in their social surroundings. Expecting teachers and administrators to have their students dismiss these values simply because of a multi-cultural class has been experienced or a dedicating a month to improving race relations is nonsense. If not handled carefully, these kinds of efforts, in fact, will have the direct opposite impact as desired. A much better approach would be for our culture to look at what is happening to children at the very early stages of their value-imprinting process. What is taking place in their lives from the time they are born until they are five or six years old? That is not a pretty picture but one that must be examined and corrected. So much happens out of schools that impacts the ethos of those schools. Gary Orfield, writing for the Harvard Education Letter in 2013 called the resegregation of suburban schools a “hidden crisis.” He reported that those communities were once white, middle class, or integrated, and then became segregated by race and later poverty. Resegregation is followed by disinvestment and decline. Then you have poor communities without resources to tax, and you have all of the problems that the central cities had only more so because there aren’t as many institutional resources in the suburbs. That’s the cycle that’s happening in many suburbs, where over half of minority students now attend school. There are now more low-income people living in the suburbs than cities. It’s hidden because nobody is talking about it in public. But you can find about it in a minute if you have some realtors come into a bar and talk about it, or you go to a local playground. School people don’t want to talk about it.



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A month earlier, Lawrence Blum, also writing for the Harvard Education Letter said this, Americans, especially white Americans, don’t like to talk about race. And they generally don’t think they need to know anything about it, either. Many Americans think we are in a “post racial” society, partly because a black man is president, so they don’t need to give much thought to race anymore. This view is completely and deeply wrong. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder spoke the truth when he said in 2009, “We average Americans simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.” What he didn’t say is that in order to talk productively about race, we have to know something about it. “Things racial” are not just matters of opinion and feeling. They are also matters of knowledge and insight.

Writing in the University of Maryland, College Park’s Endeavors publication’s Winter 2014 edition, Dr. Robert Croninger put it another way. In an interesting article entitled “‘Fixing’ Society, Education’s Undue Burden,” in which he explored the relationship between education, inequality, and the social contract, he said that education as the great equalizer has placed a tremendous challenge on our public schools. “If you work hard enough, pay attention in school, and study for your tests, eventually you will succeed in life,” he reveals as America’s dream and adds that this language “saturates the language we use to talk about education.” “But,” he adds, “when Americans speak of equal educational opportunity we’re really talking about access to education. The assumption is that with access comes a level playing field and, for the student who only strives for it, inevitable success: landing a dream job after college and leaping into the echelons of the middle class or even the upper class . . . . Thanks to this assumption, society places a heavy burden on the education system.” Croninger and doctoral candidate Kathleen Hoyer analyzed the history of the shifting of burdens onto education, the conceptual dismantling of the social contract, and the gradual loss of “the civic purpose or collective goods of schooling” in their paper “Equitable Public Education: Getting Lost in the Shuffle.” They ask, “To what extent are future federal and state policy efforts likely to reverse the negative educational trends facing low-income students and ensure that they do not get lost in the shuffle?” Responding to this point, they believe, requires us to look well beyond education, to adopt a perspective which recognizes the interrelatedness of various parts of our social fabric and how those parts—and the public policy we exercise in their interest—can either advance or hinder educational opportunity. “There should be a social contract that goes beyond education,” Croninger asserts. “Rather than having a robust conception of what constitutes a just

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society, everything has been focused on education as the institution that will address social inequality. The truth of the matter is that education probably can’t do that, not without some more broad-based conceptions that involve other institutions.” “The basic idea here,” he continued, “is that you cannot rely sole on education to address problems of poverty or discrimination. Our focus on education as a primary vehicle for reform took root after the Great Depression. Changes in other sectors of society that could benefit children have lagged behind those made in education. Other sectors need to be involved in providing health services, employment opportunities, and community development.” Who could argue with that? Another reality that public school educators must confront is the explosion of blended families in our culture. Some high stakes testing data streams now identify multiple race students. How is this going to impact the work being done on closing the achievement gap? The whole dynamic is being altered because of this development. In some quarters, parents or students can declare their race. This also presents an interesting ethical and strategic minefield as educators attempt to come to grips with parental and student choice in terms of ethnicity. Perhaps there will come a time when all students and parents will fit into the multi-race column. None of us are perfectly homogenized with only one bloodline from one country. Another compromising development in the matter of ethnicity in our public schools is the fact that, as our student population is becoming more diverse, our public school workforce is becoming more homogenous. The stark reality is that more opportunities exist for people of color than did in the past and they are opting for careers other than public education. Try to find a teacher of Haitian descent to work in a school with a growing Haitian student population. That is an exhausting and frustration process! A credible response to this is to grow your own minority teachers. Identify a diverse cohort of students who would make quality teachers by their junior year of high school. Have them participate in a mentor relationship with quality teachers during their senior year. Assist them in completing college applications, help them secure scholarships for their post high school education, and have them substitute in the school system as they are in college. Finally, have them student teach in the system. If you can help defray any college loans in the process, this would help. The only drawback to this process is that these students become highquality candidates wherever they choose to go. They are the free agents of our society, high-quality minority teacher candidates. The “hook” to keeping them in your school system is the roots that they developed as students and citizens of your communities.



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The challenge for educational leaders finding minority teacher candidates is a real one. The competition is on! And, for people who work in smaller or poorer school systems, there is a real opportunity gap. Larger wealthier school systems can pay moving expenses, sometimes offer rent-free living for a year, give students job during their sophomore years of college, or offer other advantages their smaller and less wealthy competitors cannot. This dynamic sets the stage for a huge gap in better aligned school staff demographics with student demographics in those smaller and poorer school districts. THE RACE CARD Perhaps no phenomenon has impacted the analysis of test scores as has the race card. This is more the race card of preference. We just don’t see much interest in the plight of Native Americans or Asians, with casual interest in the plight of our school’s Hispanic population, or Haitian students. So, it is selective. We’ve all heard the adage about playing the race card. The race card is always in play because the threat of playing it is as if it has already been played. Who holds the race card? It is as ubiquitous as air. Anyone who wants one has one. It could be a student or a parent, an educator or a layperson, a community member or a state delegate. The aura of the race card hangs over every decision that is made in public education, from staffing decisions to student discipline data, from budget creation processes to professional development, and from grading choices to extracurricular experiences. It is not possible to remember a single year’s analysis of test data when the matter of race was not a major point of discussion. That has been a persistent and consistent source of pressure on the educational community for over four decades! Why so little progress on closing the achievement gap in terms of Caucasian and African American students? Educators have been working hard on this for decades. But they are working against a culture that continuously pounds a different ideology on different races. One minority is doing very well in our public schools: our Asian students. As David Berliner pointed out about international testing, “Our Japanese students beat the Japanese Japanese students every time.” Why is this? And, it includes Chinese, Korean . . . any students from the Asian culture. “Because,” Berliner points out, “the Asian family places a very high priority on education.” There are examples he points out in his book, Manufactured Crisis, of 40 percent of Japanese students attending tutoring sessions

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after school and of Japanese mothers sitting in on classes when their children are absent. The Japanese people understand that wherever the child ends the formal education experience plays a major role in any and all career aspirations. This has a negative downside. Japan owns the highest teenage suicide rate of industrialized countries. This intense focus on academics plays out on the state and local scale, whether it is the percentage of Asian students who are found in the pool of top high school seniors being recognized by the state secretary of education in Delaware or the percent of Asian students who are recognized by the Center for Talented Youth at Johns Hopkins University annually, it is always the same. Asian students recognized for top academic achievement profoundly exceed their percentage in the total population. It is easy to witness this behavior, Asian children reading on benches before school, during lunch, and at every opportunity. Asian students involved in all academic competitions in the school, and Asian children often forgoing the weekend partying in which their classmates engage in order to be better prepared for school. Simply open your eyes and you will see it. Yes, this is a generalization that is a distinction. What would happen if students and their parents in other ethic pools demonstrated this same drive, this passion, for maximizing their educational experience? What if other races adopted the same philosophy as do the Asian parents? Would not we see a corresponding increase in test scores on the part of students from other ethnicities? To ask that question is to answer it. In fact, this is seen over and over again with students with very supportive parents, regardless of the color of their skin. Another vexing development with respect to race is overcompensation. A dean of education at a university expressed that minority students from neighboring cities could not receive failing grades, even though they would rarely attend class, would not purchase nor read the textbooks, and would not do well on assessments. Also, that same dean lamented the fact that technology would not be available to instructors because it had been stolen from the classrooms. One would hope that these situations are isolated examples. However, these serve as horrid examples of how not to respond to the challenge of the achievement gap, by pretending that standards just don’t matter. Regarding the aforementioned ideological point, we never have been and never will be a melting pot, that term often used in twentieth century history books to describe an assimilation process that was supposed to take place as soon as immigrants landed at Ellis Island. People did not leave their heritage on the boat. In fact, there is a plethora of examples of people celebrating their ethnic heritage on a grand scale



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throughout our communities and throughout the year. We are likened more to a salad bowl with our individual differences, like each different vegetable, yet covered with that dressing that is the American experience. The language, the folkways, and the mores all carry a powerful impact on our children, our students. Could it be that some view the school experience as a means of stripping that heritage from the youth. Have you heard any discussion about African American students not wanting to do well in school because it would make them appear white? HOMOGENEOUS VERSUS HETEROGENEOUS GROUPING Few strategies get educators worked up as much as how to group students. This dichotomy continues to grow. On the one hand is the idea that grouping students according to need, homogeneous grouping, will allow educators to be specific and intentional in directing resources aimed at closing the dreaded gap. Teachers will be less likely to be stretched between providing attention to multiple levels of students requiring advanced differentiated instructional techniques and will be able to spend more time providing the direct attention, at the content level, with the strategies that specific groups of small students need. This would appear to be the most cost-effective and efficient way of delivering instruction to students in need while not compromising the education of more precocious students. The opposite model, heterogeneous grouping, provides for students at all ability levels in the same setting. This more politically correct approach has support from those who feel that low achievers need high-achieving role models to emulate, that the more able students can help their struggling peers, that students know who they are and will act out if all of the low achievers are all placed in one class, and that those low-ability students will be further stigmatized by only being scheduled with their low-ability peers. Further, the detractors of homogeneous grouping postulate, teachers will tend to “teach down” if they know that their class is filled with only students below grade level, sometimes significantly below grade level. Parents of precocious students become annoyed when their children’s educational opportunities are victimized because of the use of heterogeneous grouping. They do not like their children to be used as teachers; they feel they should be taught, beginning from where they are and stretched beyond that point. They don’t like the teacher’s instructional time being usurped by unruly students who don’t understand the academic concept or who don’t appreciate the values of respect, punctuality, and orderliness. These parents are politically active and push back at the local level. Sometimes they vote with their feet, transferring their children to choice schools

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or private schools. Some become so angered that they create charter schools and pull their children and other academically gifted children away from the comprehensive public school, taking important resources with them. This debate has extended into the discussion of how to identify . . . how to best provide services for gifted students in public schools. One elementary school-level administrator, attempting to have our gifted students be able to advantage themselves of the programming of the Johns Hopkins University Center For Talented Youth, was confronted by a district-level gifted and talented supervisor, who posed the question, “What about the students who don’t get selected?” The school-level administrator’s response, attempting not to be curt, was that everyone can’t be gifted or there would not, in fact, be a gifted program, only a politically correct program that doesn’t recognize, celebrate, and support those students who are truly gifted in some way. We have become so politically correct in public schools that, in our zest to make everyone feel happy, we have de-motivated the very students who should be excelling at the zenith. That’s too bad, but it is a natural component of attempting to close the achievement gap by slowing down our most precocious students. That same gifted and talented supervisor pointed out that there continued to be a high level of consternation about the low number of minority and students of poverty included in the lists of students identified as gifted and talented. This was an issue at the school, district, state, and national levels. The strategy used to correct this imbalance would be to allow students of color and those of poverty to be identified using lower standards, an opportunity denied to the white and students not of poverty. Where one draws the line of identification of giftedness is of some concern; however, the fact that one group would have an advantage not rendered to all students was most disturbing. This only serves to disparage the entire idea of giftedness, as defined by public schools. This is a values issue, a resource issue, and a political issue. Educators have lost their jobs because of their stand on the matter of homogeneous and heterogeneous grouping. It has been and continues to be an important point of discussion in our public schools. As of this writing, there appears to be a growing interest in returning to homogeneous grouping. CHAIRS, CHICKENS, AND CHILDREN There is still another way to think about how we group students and how that model impacts their academic achievement. Paging through the volumes of



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literature dealing with educational matters, it is easy to identify article after article which underscores the importance of fitting the learning experience to the individual student. As important as that may seem, common practice in our schools seems to indicate that we are far from achieving that goal. Grouping patterns that tend to either be by ability or age fail to realize that, within any group, there will still be individuals. In fact, an argument can be made that the only completely homogenous group is a group of one! After scanning the far reaches of society, one may conclude that there may be a reason for this apparent inability to deal with students as individuals. For the system, it is far easier and less costly to expand the group characteristics so as to include the maximum number of pupils with the fewest number of groups. Something as simple as a chair is a lasting symbol of society’s reluctance to building and sustaining individual relationships. Whether the chairs are in the cafeteria, on a bus, in an airplane, or in a theater, they are all the same size. Notwithstanding the obvious aesthetic drawbacks to having a variety of seat sizes located in an auditorium, on a school bus, or any place else, questions would arise concerning how many of each size and what kind of distribution of the different sizes should be utilized. Should tablet arms be left-handed or not? Finally, additional cost, due to the fact that seat sizing would not be uniform, would also be a drawback. As an oversized human being struggles to accommodate his fundament to the proportions provided for in the typical movie theater, wouldn’t it be thoughtful for designers to take individual differences into consideration? The same must be emphasized regarding the curricular decisions we make in our classrooms. Another excellent example of this unfortunate attitude may be drawn by developing an analogy between chicken farming and education. It is normal to hear farmers talking about their broilers, their fryers, their roasters, and their layers. Of course, they’re talking about their chickens. It is necessary to point out that this type of dialogue is appropriate since it would be unlikely to see broilers, fryers, roasters, and layers all mixed together in the same chicken house. For convenience sake, chickens are housed in a manner which facilitates the care with which they are processed, taking into consideration food, water, and the time they spend in their prep area. In education, we must take care that we do not treat students in the same manner as we do chickens. Whether it be for convenience sake or not, we must avoid labeling our students as “academics,” “vocational,” or “spec eds.” Classes are labeled . . . not students.

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A student may take an Advanced Placement English class while being simultaneously enrolled in a vocational class. The potential for such crossfertilization is without limitation. You may hear an educator make this mistake. If so, you need to remind that individual of this important axiom. We are not in the business of processing large masses of students through a system which is not responsive to their individual needs. Learning is a very individual process. We must be careful to not fall into the trap of providing for our classes a generic experience, one in which some students will find success but in which others will find only frustration or boredom. We must shape our learning experiences in order that they closely resemble the needs of our learners. We must continually strive to make education unique and beneficial for each student. We must continuously work toward and look for opportunities to create that perfect homogenous group . . . the group of one. We must remember that students are neither broilers nor layers, neither roasters, nor fryers; they are people. And, if we fashion these experiences expertly enough, our students’ achievement will be positively stimulated. WHAT DOES WORK? If you are interested in closing the achievement gap, whatever that means, there are some strategies that have met with profound success. These were designed for, implemented in, and evaluated with data from middle and high schools. They would also be successful for elementary schools. At times, institutional decision-making does contribute to a widening of the gap between successful students and those struggling. How does that happen? Most schools allow students and their parents to become major players in determining how students are scheduled. This can easily lead to those students’ academic demise and cause a pernicious development regarding the most important result of this process, success in college. What do parents want to do about their children’s school experience? If you thought “brag about it,” give yourself a silent cheer. Next comes the most important step in this process. How best to create a situation to make that happen? If you answered “under-schedule yourself,” you are in a minority of thinkers. However, that is exactly what takes place in too many schools. Students under-schedule themselves so they may give parents what they want: good grades. If, by chance, those students are placed in a more demanding class, they can quickly produce data that encourages their counselors to move them



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down the academic pecking order. Using this practice, students, with little or no effort, can make their parents proud of them. However, this does have a number of deleterious effects on those students’ academic careers. They are underprepared for the SAT; they don’t develop and practice quality study habits; they don’t read enough, which retards their vocabulary development; they are not exposed to higher levels of mathematics, science, and social studies; and they have little or no experience with a foreign language. This unfortunate development means they will struggle to get into college, will be less likely to receive financial support while there, and will most likely not survive their freshman year. They will, however, have been able to make it through high school, much to the happiness of their parents. Too many middle school and high school graduations take place where parents “make a scene” when their children, who just barely were able to move on and walk across the stage. How sad that this is the zenith of their celebratory opportunity. So, what can be done to alter this mess? One model that has been used very successfully is to have students experience preview classes in the summer. Provided free transportation, a free breakfast and/or lunch, and free registration for students to take, for instance, the next higher rigorous class that they could take the next year, the exact same class. These classes should be risk free; students cannot fail; their performance in the classes will not impact their GPA the following year. For example, sixth graders could take pre-Algebra in the summer. At the end of the summer, a decision would be made about them taking pre-Algebra once the school year began. The vision for these classes is for students to be able to “move up” a level in mathematics after the summer experience because they had that same class during the summer. In rare instances, students can perform so well that they can take pre-Algebra in the summer and be advanced to Algebra I in the fall. These are the exceptions and not the rule. Once this process becomes imbedded in the thinking of the school and community, you will have strong support from the parents of your FARMS. One school director had over 150 parents send their children to this experience. The students did well. In one example, in 2003, prior to this initiative, the middle school had one African American student taking Algebra I in the eighth grade. The high school had five Advanced Placement classes and only one African American student was accessing one Advanced Placement class. As the program began to evolve, the middle school schedule improved to three sections of pre-Algebra in sixth grade, three Algebra I classes in seventh grade, and two sections of Algebra II and two sections of Algebra I in the eighth grade! Student enrollment in these classes was aligned to the school’s

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enrollment demographics with over half of the students being minority and better than 60 percent being FARMS. It is important to point out that these were the real classes, not watered down imposters. At the high school, the Advanced Placement offerings expanded to thirteen with African American and FARMS enrollment growing at a rapid pace. One African American sophomore took three Advanced Placement classes in the tenth grade and scored two four’s and one five on the Advanced Placement exams! It is very important to note that offering these classes was not enough. Tutoring opportunities were made available, free SAT prep classes offered, and twice-monthly one-on-one conferences with all participating students were had. Did all students succeed? No. But, a significant number of students had access to higher rigor coursework than prior to the initiative. Parents were sold on the concept by expressing it in financial terms. If their children took full advantage of this model, they would start college as sophomores, thus wiping out a full year’s worth of tuition expenses; they would have access to more prestigious colleges and universities; and they would be able to access more scholarship monies to help defray the cost to the college experience. In addition, students were leaving middle school with one, two, or three high school credits. Each spring, a major banquet was held to celebrate the previous year’s success and stimulate participation in the future. The banquet, which always had a major keynote speaker, a sumptuous meal, and a brief itinerary, was free to everyone who attended. It became so popular that it spilled from the high school cafeteria into the main hall of the school. The other example involved a middle school experience, in 2009, in which the identical model was used. This time, another feature was added. Students could access foreign language experience using Rosetta Stone technology. The same summer enrichment experience, tutoring, and conferencing experiences were made possible. Students could also access high school credit in Spanish during their eighth-grade year and either Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, or German to complement their high rigor language arts and mathematics content. Again, students were very successful in this model. Not all were able to complete it, but the effort was there. The data suggested a strong positive impact on the academic performance of African American students in the school’s most rigorous mathematics classes. About half of the makeup of the three sixth-grade pre-Algebra classes and two seventh-grade Algebra classes was African American. Three African American students were taking Geometry in the eighth grade. None of these students had a grade less than a C.



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An unintended by-product of this design was that it positively impacted both attendance and behavior data. Students wanted to come to school, and they were so busy attending to what was unfolding in their academic lives that most did not find themselves being referred to the office for some act of impropriety. Every model is perfectly designed to get the results it does. If we schedule students in such a way so as to deny them exposure to the rigor and experiences they will need to be successful on high stakes tests, we should not be surprised when they do not do well. We cannot let institutional decision-making negatively impact student achievement. If you can walk down the halls of your school and tell what kind of class is in each classroom because of the color of students’ skin, you have a problem. You also have a choice. SCENARIO Donnie Brook is facing a major decision as he interviews for a third-grade position at the elementary school where he is principal. It is late in the spring and his district’s human resource department has produced a healthy list of candidates from which he and his interview team can make a recommendation to the board of education. His school has a growing African American population which is nearing 45 percent. As he ponders the ethnicity of his staff, he realizes that he has no African American teachers but does have an African American secretary. He also notes that none of his teachers can grow a beard. His committee is comprised of third-grade teacher June Bugg, a secondyear educator who is easy going and will agree with anything; fourth-grade teacher Pat See, a seasoned veteran who is set in her ways; and parent Sandy Beach, who moved into the school’s boundaries in early January and immediately became very active in the parent-teacher organization and volunteers frequently in the school. She has two sons, one in first grade and the other in fourth grade. After conducting a paper screening of the available candidates, Brook selects five candidates to interview. An interrogatory is developed, the process is enacted, and the committee begins to discuss the best candidate to recommend to the board. Two candidates rose significantly above the rest, May Flowers, an African American who just graduated from the local university, and Jim Dandy, who grew up in the district, moved out of state, and has two years of teaching experience.

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Before Brook begins a discussion with the committee about the two candidates, he points out that the numerical ratings the committee gave them produced the exact same number for both of them. They did not get perfect scores and some committee members rated one higher than the other and vice versa. See speaks first, pointing out that the school is in dire need of an African American teacher due to the rising number of students of color at the school. Beach counters that saying that she would like to have a male figure with whom her sons, and the sons of other parents, could relate. Bugg hesitates to provide input and yields to Brook for his insight. Brook ponders the importance of this decision and how it can impact student achievement, particularly the achievement gap where males are falling behind females and African American students are falling behind their Caucasian classmates. If you could, what advice would you give to this principal about this important staffing matter?

Chapter 8

Data Streams

It is true that information is power. School people have plenty of information at their disposal. Determining the kind of information desired, and establishing protocols to collect it, are very important skills all school leaders must possess. The amount of data collected for and about public education is rivaled only by that of major league baseball, where one can now find the batting average for a left-handed hitter against a right-handed pitcher, with a two-and-one count, in a night game in Chicago, with runners on second and third, two outs, when the temperature is hovering around forty-eight degrees in April . . . and the hurler is a curveball pitcher. The amount of and kinds of data for public schools are limited only by the creativity and imagination of those who wish to mine them. Those who people our schools must work hard to avoid the DRIP phenomenon, data rich and information poor. As more and more statistics become available, how to collect and use them is becoming more of a challenge. The data streams may involve information rather than people. They could deal with budgets, energy usage, the age of underground oil tanks or roofs, the gas mileage for the school system’s fleet of vehicles, the length of time an average student spends on the bus, the amount of food consumed on daily basis in one school cafeteria, the average temperature in each of one school’s classrooms, the acreage of roofs in the school district, or the amount of copy paper used in one year. The list could go on and on. Other data involves people, either adults or children. For adults, it could be educators or lay people. School people are always interested in the amount of parental participation in the schools, in the average attendance by business people at school and business taskforce meetings, or the average number of 125

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people who vote in school elections or referendum votes. What is the average age of the community’s population? Is there a major shift in that population’s ethnicity or other demographics? Is the population growing or reducing? There is a lot of information that can help school leaders understand how the school community is involved in education. For educators, the data may look at average teacher absenteeism, either on one particular day, say Friday, or for the year. It may look at the number of teachers who decide to leave the system after one or two years, or the number of teachers the district attempts to extricate from its ranks after one or two years. It could involve the number of grievances in the district or at a particular school, the number of teachers who request transfers and the number who get transfers, the percentage of educators who have advanced degrees, how long educators stay at the district, the total cost of maintaining an average teacher (including other employment costs), or the number of disability claims made per year. Again the list is unending. Finally, there exists an unending supply of data relating to students. That information could relate to literally everything that takes place in schools involving students. This chapter will explore three data streams involving students: discipline, attendance, and academics. These categories cannot be analyzed in isolation as student behavior in one stream inevitably impacts the flow of data in the other. DISCIPLINE Educators in general are faced with a major challenge when dealing with the matter of student behavior. Like no other institution, they are charged with being both the protector and the advocate in matters of student discipline. This places them in the unenviable position of attempting to consider the needs of the unruly students while preserving the health and safety of all of the classmates being impacted by those students’ inappropriate behavior and poor decision-making skills. Police officers only have to be protectors. They need not worry about being an advocate for the delinquent students. The American Civil Liberties Union advocates for disciplined students’ rights; their representatives do not consider the impact on the health and safety of the offending students’ classmates in the process. School-level administrators are consumed by discipline data. On the one hand, teachers demand that some consequence be meted out to those students whose inappropriate behavior consumes the teacher’s time, disrupts the flow of instruction, and usurps the time available for the delivery of content.



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On the other, there exists the never-ending pressure to minimize student out-of-school suspensions, reduce out-of-class time for offending students, and decrease the rate of office referrals when comparing African American students with their Caucasian classmates. Depending on the resources available to those administrators, this pressure creates a data trap from which there is no escape. Some school systems have alternative settings, for some grade levels, which provide additional structure, lower class sizes, and more counseling for the students who need it. Other school systems do not have this luxury and administrators are asked to “be creative” in dealing with the challenges of inappropriate, sometimes physical, and sometimes violent behavior on the part of students. The admonition to “be creative” means that those offering such have no idea about how to prevent or deal with the rising challenges of misbehavior on the part of too many students. The strangling impact of special education regulations only serves to exacerbate this matter as the administrators are placed in a position of handing out different consequences to different students who demonstrate the same behavior. Parents, who are not aware of the special education laws, become argumentative when they discover that there is a disparity in punishments and their child has suffered more. Monitoring and shaping student behavior is not only a challenge in the schoolhouse. Dealing with the same matter on buses and at bus stops, on any school-sponsored activity not during school hours or not on school grounds creates additional challenges. Resist using the term discipline. The reason is that it sounds so reactive. A student behaves in an inappropriate way, the educator reacts, and the student receives some kind of consequence. It is as if the educators have to wait until the offending behavior is produced to get involved. Rather, use the term classroom management challenges. Establish conditions in the classroom and school which will stimulate positive decisionmaking on the part of students. For the classroom that means teachers who are informative and well-planned, who build rich relationships with their students, and who are entertaining, are likely to have fewer classroom management challenges than those who do not. It is important to point out here that there is a difference between being friendly toward students and being the students’ friend. The former acknowledges that necessary professional distance while the latter violates it. There continue to be far too many educators who compromise the reputation of all who work in schools by stepping over that line that separates friendly from friend. There are no bad students, just bad decisions. If you feel that a student is the worst student you have ever encountered, you are likely to treat him or

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her that way. As a result, you will make that student what you believe he or she is. This is a critical point in dealing with students. Being proactive means providing incentives and building relationships. While that sounds like buying good behavior on the part of students, what it really does is respond to their need for instant gratification. Like it or not, their world is one unlike what we have seen before with technology speeding up everything from communication to personal resource allocation. While schools will never be able to replicate the velocity of their weekend world, providing appropriate incentives for students will help channel classroom and school behavior in a favorable direction. Building relationships is a must for every educator who hopes to accomplish the goals of having students grasp content, build character, and become leaders. Nothing sounds sweeter to a student than the sound of his own name. Why is that? To take the time to learn one’s name, to understand his background, to share his dreams takes time. It also means that you are willing to make a commitment to that individual. One response to inappropriate student behavior is through the zero tolerance approach. Detractors of this model argue that the reason for the behavior is ignored and a remedy is determined pending the kind of infraction and the frequency of its occurrence. Let’s look at two students who are frequently late to school. They both live about two blocks from the school and both are about a half hour late two to three times a week. One student comes from a single-parent home where his mother works the graveyard shift. He has the responsibility of getting three elementary siblings up, fed, and ready for school. He runs the two blocks but is still late. The other student hates schools, argues with his parents each morning, and is late at about the same rate as his classmate. To treat these two students the same is a fool’s errand. Indeed, some schools have discipline codes which spell out consequences in just that manner. When a student receives an office referral, the administrator checks the grid and assigns the punishment. That does not serve to reduce the behavior on the part of the student. That is why so many deplore the use of zero tolerance. The example so many times given is that an individual has a headache. Absent diagnosis, the person is either given a pill, which may or may not work, or a lobotomy, which may or may not be necessary. A more useful way of looking at zero tolerance is to say that a particular behavior is unacceptable and those who choose to demonstrate that behavior will be dealt with. However, the manner in which they are dealt with will be a function of the reason that they are demonstrating that particular offensive behavior. This approach is more likely to reduce the frequency of the behavior and may eliminate it.



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There are many approaches to dealing with inappropriate student behavior. Matching the model to the personalities of those who will use it in the classroom is very important. If not, the classroom will have paper rules and nothing more. Students will soon discover that and respond accordingly. And, carefully looking at the unmet need driving the behavior is critical in correcting or eliminating it. If, for instance, the unmet behavior is attention and the teacher and/or administrator deal with the student directly, they may, in effect, be stimulating the very behavior they hope to extinguish. Negative attention is still attention, and the attention-starved student may be getting the reward he was seeking. A final word about student behavior data streams. It is possible to have data that says student behavior is what it should be in the school yet, when walking around the building, even the casual observer will see something else. Telling teachers to reduce the number of referrals will have some putting a piece of cardboard over the window in the door while they deal with chaos in their classrooms. It is imperative that the data matches the reality of the behavior in the school, else the promoted school culture is a sham and school leadership is not respected. The reduced rate of office referrals should be an artifact of improved student behavior, not a shallow attempt to conceal the real challenges facing the school. ATTENDANCE Students attending school on a routine basis is critical to their success. That point cannot be denied. Yet educators struggle to improve the rate of attendance for their students. Glenn Cook authored an article in the March 2014 ASCD Education Update, entitled “What if They Don’t Show?” In it he reported that, “Each year, as many as 7.5 million students miss at least one month of school. Yet districts struggle to identify chronically absent students, who are often missing from the data.” He continued, “In most education circles [ninety-three to ninety-five] average (attendance) is considered excellent. But in Joe Vaverchak’s world, that figure has come to represent a path to failure for a significant number of students.” Vaverchak, the attendance director for the Consolidated School District of New Britain, Connecticut, pointed out, “You think that’s great, until you start looking at the data.” Vaverchak discovered that 30 percent of his kindergarteners were “chronically absent,” meaning they missed at least 10 percent of the school year. For first graders it was nearly as bad. They had a 24 percent rate of missing at least 18 of the 180 school days.

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Vaverchak’s school system has plenty of company in meeting this challenge. A Johns Hopkins University report, The Importance of Being in School, declared that as many as 7.5 million of the nation’s 55 million students miss a month or more of school each year. Why are students absent from school? Confronting this challenge at its very earliest point clearly suggests that it is more a parent problem than a student dilemma. Kindergarten and primary school students depend completely on their parents to get to school. If their parents demonstrate a haphazard pattern of responsibility in this regard, that behavior will continue to manifest itself in their children’s behavior as their school careers unfold. Most likely, it will become more and more pronounced as each year passes and likely will result in academic problems for the students and end with the real possibility of them dropping out of school. Again, what appears to be a school problem begins in the home. Policymakers coming to grips with the obstacles that dysfunctional families present will go a long way toward helping educators solve the attendance problems that plague too many schools. How best to hold parents accountable for their children’s attendance is the real task. This returns us to the challenges of parental accountability for any number of challenges their children present. It is not an undertaking that our society has handled well for generations. State truancy courts can consume hours of your time, a principal’s time, and a visiting teacher’s time on the point of student truancy, only to fine the parent twenty-five cents, hardly an admonition with the strength to change behavior. It does not. Could parental benefits such as subsidized housing and welfare payments, be withheld for such transgressions on the part of the parents’ children? These ideas are not met with open arms at the state level in any jurisdictions. This matter is important because student attendance has been thrust into the high stakes accountability formula causing principals at all levels to grit their teeth in dismay. Surely, they want children to attend school but their efforts in the form of incentives for daily attendance, communication with the homes of their students, and sanctions for the tardy and truant have had little impact over the years. One that meets with some success in dealing with consistently tardy students is to get to school very early in the morning and call their homes to wake them up. For the most part this tactic is able to get most of them to school on time; it may be met with some hostility on the part of a few parents who do not like the early call, even if it means their children would make it to school on time or make it to school at all. Another very important point to keep in mind is how educators deal with students who do not come to school. So often, the penalty for “skipping”



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school is to be suspended from school. Read this aloud and consider how it sounds to a student. “Come to school so we can suspend you for being truant.” What sense does that make? It is possible to identify numerous positive approaches to improving the rate of attendance for students. That is important because a student cannot hope to improve his or her academic standing if he or she is not present in school. Extending that pattern beyond formal schooling, the student who has repeatedly demonstrated a pattern of high absenteeism will find it difficult to secure a job and is more likely to forfeit that opportunity due to a continued rate of high absenteeism. ACADEMICS The flow of data relating to student academic behavior is so voluminous so as to make even the most effusive researcher take pause. There are streams for entire states, districts, schools, and grade levels; individual teachers; cohorts of all kinds, shapes, and color; and individual students. The streams can be for an individual year, over a period of years, or in the form of matched pairs, comparing student performance in one year with those same students in a different year. Indeed it is now possible to get nationwide reports for cohorts of students taking different assessments. How this data is used, and misused, to determine everything from student promotion and graduation, to teacher, administrator, and school effectiveness, is limited only by the imagination of those analyzing it. It may be used for diagnostic purposes, delving into the numbers to determine what caused either a positive or negative development; it may be used for evaluative purposes, either shining brilliant accolades on some students, educators, and schools for stellar results, or instilling sanctions on others for poor performance. Also, assessments may be used for varied purposes. Assessment may be for learning or assessment may be of learning. The former will take the form of formative assessment and may be used to interject interventions for the purpose of making improvements. The latter is summative assessment and is used to rank teachers, schools, and school systems. It could be argued that the former is a physical and the latter is an autopsy, the data collected so late as to be unable to save the body from which it was collected. As that favored American icon Paul Harvey oft reported, “Now, for the rest of the story.” Considering the data in isolation, in difference to other conditions that persist at a particular school or school district, too often results in an incomplete understanding of the reported results, be they excellent or poor. Ergo, showering praise or imposing sanctions on those whose behavior

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caused the data spread is likely to result in confusion and frustration on all of those associated with the matter. Less wealthy schools and school districts are places where there exists a very high rate of poverty with deflated property values that challenge even the most creative individuals to find ways of supporting their educators and students. Too often, underpaid, skillful, dedicated, creative, and passionate educators work overtime to produce positive results, only to have their efforts downplayed and criticized by those counting the numbers. In dismay they know of colleagues in wealthier schools and school districts, with low rates of poverty and high property values, who bask in the limelight for results they achieved with far less effort. Jonathan Kozol, in his work Savage Inequalities, pointed this out time and again. It was wrong, it is wrong, and it will continue to be wrong to compare and rank schools whose resources are so different. Yet, it continues to be done. One unfortunate by-product of this exercise is the decision, on the part of some school and district administrators, to convolute the data through unethical practices. Sadly, this process has done more to cast aspersions on all of the hardworking educators in public schools and render them to be victimized by continued calumniations than any other recent development. From policymakers to real estate agents, the public’s thirst for ranking and comparison knows no bounds. Our educators and our students suffer from this practice. SCENARIO Krystal Ball’s elementary school has enjoyed a very productive past five years. The veteran principal has seen her school’s state test scores continuously rising above state averages, watched her student attendance rate sustain a mark above 96 percent, and has seen office and bus referrals dip to less than three a day for her 450 kindergarten through six-grade students. Life has been good, very good. As Ball examines her data, she notes that her Free and Reduced Meal Students rate is about 15 percent, and she has a special education population of less than 5 percent. Also, her student body is made up of 80 percent Caucasian students. Ball regularly talks with the city’s mayor, May Flowers. Flowers informed Ball last month that two new businesses would be moving into their community. They would attract a population unlike the community has seen in quite a while. The workforce would be much poorer, less likely to speak English, and have a family unit characterized as undereducated, fractured, and challenged in terms of dealing with conflict.



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Flowers warned Ball that the new student population this development would create would likely consume about one-quarter of the elementary school’s study body within three years. Ball thinks deeply about this information and plans to meet with her guidance counselor, Summer Scule, to put in place a plan to deal with it. What should be the components of their plan, how do they create it, how do they implement it, and how do they evaluate it?

Chapter 9

Teacher Evaluation

Without a doubt, the critical element impacting a school’s culture is how staff are evaluated. In fact, the manner in which this process is carried out will result in far-reaching consequences, not to mention the psychological and emotional pressures exerted on the individual completing the evaluations, the principal. What are the pitfalls, the traps, the potholes into which unwary administrators are likely to slip as they attempt to fulfill this requirement of their job description? Is there any way to avoid the problem areas and complete this assignment in a manner so as to inject accountability into professional performance while maintaining a positive culture in the school? Indeed there is! Realizing that a quality process is one which seeks to provide, for the teacher, a personalized professional development program is tantamount to the perspective with which one approaches this matter. A natural by-product of the process will be a paper trail which will enable the administrator to recommend termination of contract, if necessary. However, it is essential that anyone who enters into this process understands that it is about helping teachers demonstrate a behavior which will facilitate increased student achievement. There is no absence of writing detailing the elusive connection between teacher evaluation and student achievement. Researchers find little evidence to determine either a correlative relationship or any level of causality between the words found on teacher evaluative reports and the performance of the students entrusted to those teachers. Why? Why has this crucial element of public education so mystified educators and researchers alike? Politicians use it for election fodder; the general public bemoans the fact that the teacher everyone admits is not up to standard remains on the job. Why? 135

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During the 1988/1989 school year, there were 5,850 teachers employed by the Delaware public schools; during that same year, four tenured teachers were dismissed. Were there not more than four tenured teachers in Delaware during that year who were performing at a sub-par performance, some at a very low level? What happens to those teachers who are not dismissed but who, in the views of colleagues, students, parents, and administrators, should not be working in our schools? A few resign. But most stay on, clinging to a profession for which they are unsuited. As the years have come and gone, and the matter of teacher evaluation has continued to be pressed to the forefront in the institution of education, these concerns have continued to be echoed in article after article in educational journals. The fact that many journals have as their theme teacher evaluation is an indication of the high level of interest in this topic. Yet, those ill-suited teachers remain in the classrooms. The opening directive to graduate students on the initial evening of the supervision and evaluation classes for one adjunct professor is for them to identify the “worst teacher in their school.” Sadly, with a smile on their faces or a nod of their heads, it takes them less than ten seconds to accomplish this task. The fact that this requirement is so rapidly satisfied is an indication that, despite the use of tons of paper to publish articles about teacher evaluation and the use of untold days and hours of time to discuss such, the matter appears to be no closer to being rectified than ever. Next, the professor asks students how that individual can still be there. This brainstorming activity renders a variety of reasons, none justifiable, for this deplorable state of affairs that victimizes too many classrooms. So often those excuses reference faulty evaluation systems, politics, ill-prepared or reluctant administrators, teacher unions, or teacher shortages in identified curriculum areas. Class members’ responses to the query, “Would you like your child to be in that unsuitable teacher’s class?” are immediate and predictable. This is quickly followed by the assertion, “If teachers don’t want their children in that class, is it fair that the butcher, the baker, or the candlestick maker’s child has to be in that class?” At this point, there is a challenge making eye contact with a portion of the class. For all of the discussion, the planning, the model development, the research conducted, and the time and activity directed at the matter of teacher evaluation, could we conclude that conditions have not much changed in a very long time? Sadly, during the length of time we are pondering, generations of students have passed through these classes marginally led by those largely unsuited for the profession.



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There is a greater and far more crucial point to be considered as these processes, these debates, continue to unfold. The ramifications of this single acknowledgment have and will have far-reaching implications for schools, for students, and for the institution of public education. The failure to realize and respond to it has caused too many schools to fall prey to sub-par labels, to spur the development of charter schools, and cause more and more of the public to question the quality of public education. That point is the next one those students hear in those graduate-level classes. If that unacceptable teacher is not dealt with appropriately, that is the performance level to which all teachers in that school can fall. How can an administrator deal with a teacher whose performance is faulty when the indignant response may be, “What are you doing about Harry? Everyone knows he is no good but you aren’t doing anything about him. I think you have targeted me.” The work of this chapter is designed to point out a number of the challenges facing those who wish to observe and evaluate staff, offer some solutions to those challenges, and reinforce the all-important impact this process has on the effectiveness of public schooling. TEACHER SPECIALIST: ADMINISTRATOR GENERALIST Administrators typically come from the ranks of teachers. Their normal career evolution begins with them managing a single class, such as second grade, or a particular content area, such as mathematics. When their experience brings them to the administrative office, they now find themselves responsible for all grade levels and all content areas. This can be a formidable task. Imagine a grouchy long-time tenth-grade biology teacher asking a new administrator, “Who do you think you are, telling me what to do in my classroom? I’ve been teaching this content for twenty-three years. When was the last time you taught a biology class?” While this may seem a bit caustic, it is a question that must be answered. The administrator must earn the respect of the teaching staff through his or her knowledge of content, pedagogy, and students. Not that the administrator has to be expert but, through his or her conversations with staff, they will come to believe that the administrator is or is not prepared to offer them credible ideas about how to improve what he or she sees in their classrooms. Making the transformation from a specialist in the classroom to a generalist in the school with specialist credentials and experience is not easy. But it is all the more so if the teachers are going to be evaluated in a competent manner.

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The quickest way to short-circuit your administrative career and victimize your capability to properly observe and evaluate teachers is to offer silly advice or engage in conversation that exposes you as unprepared for the job at hand. Credibility is so difficult to earn yet so easy to lose. Once lost, it may never be regained. The challenge is even more foreboding for administrators who find their way to their administrative positions through either specials classes, such as band, art, or chorus, or through a pipeline that did not involve daily instruction of students, such as guidance or after logging several years as a school psychologist. The advice to administrative neophytes is to gain membership in the major educational content organizations, as well as administrative, research, policy, and professional development associations. You simply cannot read enough. The best gift a practicing administrator can give his or her staff is the experience to be prepared for the new reform . . . before it arrives at the schoolhouse door. That means being proactive rather than reactive. That means being very well read. Reading the journals to look for trends, keeping track of which speakers or content appear to be headliners at the conventions, and keeping an eye on political developments will all serve the administrator well as he or she positions himself or herself to be a true leader, not a manager or pseudo leader. This cannot be done enough. If you are interested in gaining a position in administration, work two jobs, the job you have and the job you want. If you are a teacher, get involved with the work that assistant principals do. Ask your principal if you may help with scheduling, with preparing the budget, with selecting staff, or with handling student behavior or stimulating parental involvement. Volunteer to coach a team or sponsor an activity such as yearbook or school newspaper. It is very valuable to be able to provide support with problems that develop in a particular area of a school if you have been in those positions as a teacher. It gives you an understanding that cannot be had absent the actual experience. This is a trade-off–pay-off matter. The trade-off is that it takes time, lots of it. The pay-off is that you will be much better prepared for that first administrative position when you get the call that says, “You’re the one.” Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop with that first position. If is your intention to move from assistant principal to principal, the process must be repeated; if you want to move from principal to the district office, off you go again; if you have aspirations of becoming the superintendent, there are more experiences and background to be collected. It is part of the process of career advancement.



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You do not want to be victimized by the Peter Principle, of being promoted to your level of incompetence. You don’t want to move into a new position and ask yourself, ever so quietly, “What do I do now?” You want to hit the ground running, making quality decisions and assisting staff in promoting the most beneficial experiences for your students. That is your never-ending challenge. FROM ART TO SCIENCE Fifty years ago, what happened in classrooms in public schools was truly an art. Teachers worked their magic and students were able to survive or not pretty much as a function of their motivation, their background, and their teachers’ knowledge, preparation, and delivery. The mystic of how these factors blended escaped everyone involved. They just did . . . or they didn’t. For teachers, that meant the observation and evaluative experience was not unlike the advice a struggling Little League pitcher gets each spring. “Try harder; don’t lose him; throw strikes.” It’s as if those yelling those phrases don’t understand that he is trying hard, he doesn’t want to lose the batter, and, if he could figure out how to throw those darn strikes, he certainly would. Administrators’ advice after the observation (if they bothered to meet with the teacher) went along the lines of “Pretty good lesson.” If the teacher asked why (which most did not, wanting to escape the pressures of those kinds of conversations quickly), the administrator’s most likely return would have been, “It just sounded good.” Sadly, if the observation did not go well, it was unlikely that the administrator would have been able to provide any reason why or any advice on improvement. “Just didn’t sound right to me . . . the kids were too loud.” Wow! Any meaningful, yet rudimentary, conversation probably centered on teacher behavior (“Why didn’t you ever call on Jack?”) rather than a deep and rich conversation dealing with the content and pedagogy revealed in the class and how it connected with student interest, ability, and success. We are much, much better today. Still, as we move ever farther from art and closer to science, it is not an exact science. We cannot say to a teacher, “Do this and you will get this.” Our assistance is more like, “Try this and you are likely to get this.” That is if the teacher implements the recommendation with fidelity, that most elusive attitude and behavior that exists in far too few schools and classrooms today. In fact, moving teachers from compliance to commitment may be best measured by the fidelity with which they incorporate interventions studied, developed, or identified through professional development time. The most

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effective means administrators may determine where an individual teacher may fall on the compliance and commitment spectrum is comparing how that teacher performs during unannounced versus announced observations. If the intervention is present in both, there is a strong likelihood that the teacher is committed to the intervention; if the intervention is present in neither, that teacher is likely to be either insubordinate or incompetent; and if the intervention is present in only the announced observation, the administrator must have a compliance-commitment conversation with that teacher. After decades of running around schools and sitting in classrooms, researchers are now able to identify those adult behaviors which, if present in the classroom, are more likely to lead to increased student improvement than if they are absent. This is not an absolute certainty but much, much better than classroom analysis of the past. Before administrators can do an effective job of observing and evaluating teachers, they must have a deep and rich understanding of how curriculum works, of content, and of strategies that can be used to assist teachers who are struggling. The general lack of understanding of these concepts on the part of administrators has led to a less than effective effort to use the observation and evaluation process to improve instruction and positively stimulate student achievement. There are three systems constantly at work in our schools. One deals with the data that students provide for us. That data may relate to their attendance, their behavior, or their academic performance. We’ll deal specifically with the academic performance in this discussion. The second deals with interventions educators use to positively stimulate that data. These interventions may be content-oriented, focus on processes, or be people-related. Finally, there must be some kind of oversight to ensure that the interventions are implemented with a high level of fidelity. If not, there is every opportunity for the models to be skewed in such a way so as to limit their effectiveness. This oversight is where teacher observations and evaluations take place. However, that oversight may be incidental observations, it may be supported by walkthrough experiences, or it may be part of an administrator’s visibility routine. In order for the administrator to have a working and realistic idea of the reality that is his or her school, he or she must be out and about regularly during each school day. One major determinant regarding student academic success is how teachers use their time. Fenwick English discerns between four terms in dealing with this matter. He would like teachers to provide instruction rather than teach. And, he would like us to concentrate on student achievement rather than their learning. While the differences between these four terms, on face value, may seem trite, their use will make all the difference in the classroom.



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English says that instruction is teaching as aligned to some standard. We may teach about anything. If, for instance, our assigned class is mathematics but our interest is social studies, it is possible to teach a good lesson about social studies during mathematics class. While the students may learn some more about social studies, that will do them no good when they are confronted with an assessment that presumes that they have had experience with the mathematics content. Likewise, achievement is learning as aligned to some standard. The reality is that we cannot stop students from learning. Sometimes they learn what we wish they did not. However, it is achievement that will serve them well when it comes to the time for them to prove their academic prowess on some high stakes assessment. Working in two different states as an upper-level administrator, one public school administrator would always share his philosophy on student progress with teachers this way. “We want our students to prove their academic prowess in mathematics and reading as a result of their performance on those assessments in the Delaware Student Testing Program.” And, “We want our students to prove their academic prowess in mathematics and reading as a result of their performance on those assessments on the Maryland School Assessment tests.” The way mathematics and reading success is measured has varied from state to state. Now, with a movement toward a national curriculum, through the Common Core Curriculum, that may be changing. Is that a positive or negative development? We do not yet know. So, it behooves teachers to align their efforts with the state standards or Common Core standards from which the assessment items are drawn in order that their students’ achievement may be stimulated. English reports of three different kinds of curriculum. They are the tested, the written, and the taught. The tested curriculum is usually apparent to everyone. Most likely it is a high stakes commercially produced assessment at the state level. It may also be a locally developed test or, at the classroom level, a teacher-made assessment. There should be a high level of congruency between all forms of assessment in terms of both content and context. The written curriculum is also usually apparent to everyone. Most likely it is a comprehensive state-developed curriculum. Typically, educators, researchers, and policymakers have had input into its development. The relationship between the tested and the written curriculum is important to consider. Either the test was developed first and the written curriculum responds to it or the written curriculum was developed first and test items are extracted from it. Either way, there should be a high level of congruency between both. The most elusive form of curriculum is the taught. This takes place when a teacher breathes life into the written curriculum in the classroom. How

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closely aligned the taught curriculum is to the written curriculum is all the matter. In fact, the most effective model for the delivery of content to students, in terms of their ability to do well on high stakes assessments, would be if the tested, written, and taught curricula were all completely congruent. Those who favor this model talk of “teacher proof” curriculum, which is insulting to professionals. It suggests that these strategies may be implemented effectively by even the most ill-prepared teachers. However, the fact that “teacher proof” curriculum must be developed speaks ill of all of those who must implement it. There must be some room for those “teachable moments” that pop up at the most inopportune times. Teachers, however, must be aware of how they use their time. The less congruency that develops between those three curricula, the more time they may be wasting for their students and jeopardizing those students’ academic prowess. At this point some people may ask “Should we be teaching the test?” or “Should we be providing instruction only on the content of the test?” There shouldn’t be a problem with ensuring that all of the tested material be included in the written curriculum and that the entire written curriculum be included in the taught curriculum. That is the adult world. If you want to get a license to drive, you buy the book and take the class; if you want to sell real estate, you buy the book and take the class; if you want to fly an airplane, you buy the book and take the class; if you want to practice law, you buy the books and take the classes. Why should it be any different for our students? In fact English cautions educators about students experiencing new concepts for the first time on high stakes tests. That, he says, is unacceptable and points out the importance of cultural capital in how well students do in school and, in particular, on high stakes tests. A final point about the tested, written, and taught curricula is that the tested curriculum assumes a very high level of congruence between the three. If we are to determine the level of prowess of any student, it must be assumed that that student has been able to consume the written curriculum through the implementation of the taught curriculum. If not, we are not fully measuring the success of the student but, rather, the implementation of the curriculum. Further comparing the test scores of cohorts of students, absent an examination of the cultural capital of the students comprising those cohorts, is only examining the impact of the varying cultural capital, not the students or the system used to assist the students in their preparation for the assessment. Cultural capital is what students bring to their educational experience. It is what we may call their whole life experience. People don’t have more or less cultural capital; they just have different cultural capital.



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Think of it this way. One student grows up in a home where there is an extensive library; his parents read to him every day; he goes on trips, visits museums, and explores the world outside his town. Another student grows up in a home with not one book; there isn’t anyone to read to him, ever; he plays on the streets, never leaving his town. These two young boys bring the exact same amount but vastly different cultural capital to the schoolhouse door. The impact of the different culture capital is staggering. English says you can look at it this way. When comparing schools and school systems in your state, first list them by the Free and Reduced Meal Students percentages; next make the comparison by test scores. All too often you will see a direct alignment between those schools with elevated levels of poverty and depressed scores. Reading the ninety-ninety-ninety schools literature, schools with 90 percent minority students, 90 percent of students in poverty, and 90 percent of the students meeting or exceeding the state standards, there are places where this pattern can be broken. There just aren’t enough of them. There are three more kinds of curriculum: the aligned, the articulated, and the coordinated. The articulated is the vertical, that which extends from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. The lack of communication between the various grade levels and the elementary, middle, and high schools causes insurmountable challenges for those wishing to create and sustain high student achievement. It is as if each level of schooling is its own school system. Having those different grades and school levels talk with each other and participate in unifying professional development can be of assistance in solving this problem. The coordinated curriculum is lateral and may be represented by classrooms, schools, or school districts. As a middle school principal, it is a problem if you can tell which sending elementary school your students are coming from by analyzing their mathematics test scores. The same is for a tenth-grade English teacher receiving students from four ninth-grade English teachers. Shortcomings in the articulated and coordinated curriculum cause gaps and redundancies in students’ development, the impact of which is always felt when those students reach upper-level middle school and high school. Having administrators and teachers understand that their content area, grade level, and school level does not work in isolation from all their colleagues will help. Knowing that their place is only one in a highly complex educational experience for each student and what happens before and after the student spends time with them will have a profound impact on that student’s total growth is all the matter. Another curriculum piece, the aligned curriculum, is also a major player in this conversation. Educators can have both the articulated and the coordinated well-oiled, but if what they are providing instruction about is not aligned

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to the state or Common Core standards, all will be lost for the students. Remember that the assessment items, the tested curriculum, come from the state written curriculum. Ignoring that basic fact is likely to stymie even the most talented students. The final component of this puzzle may be identified as content versus context. School administrators should be concerned when some of their most talented students score an A or a B in an Advanced Placement course yet struggle with the Advanced Placement exam in the same content. Likewise, how could elementary students achieve high marks in their grade level yet have difficulty on state assessments? This situation likely has its roots in the use of questioning techniques and the use of Bloom’s Taxonomy in the classroom. What is often discovered is that too much instruction and questioning strategies at the classroom level are at the Knowledge and Comprehension levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy while high stakes assessments typically gauge students’ deep understanding of a concept at the Application level and above. Here is what it may sound like in a seventh-grade language arts class after a reading selection. At the lower levels of the Taxonomy, the teacher’s questions are, “What color was the horse? How many people were there? What did the hero say to the captive?” Regarding the exact content a high stakes question would be, “If you were the hero in this situation, what would you do differently and why?” That’s a big difference in how students are asked to respond to that reading prompt. People often wonder why students are mystified by word problems in mathematics. This, too, is related to Bloom’s Taxonomy and questioning techniques. Take, for instance, the Pythagorean Theorem, c-squared equals a-squared plus b-squared. Teachers can give their students two values to plug into this formula and those students can find the third value over and over. However, when those students are faced with the same content, in a different form, on a high stakes test, they balk at the challenge. Imagine their response to a question such as, “House A is ten miles away from House B. House B is five miles from House C. How far is House C from House A?” Students do not even see this as a Pythagorean Theorem question! The fact that students, through time, abhor word problems in mathematics is emblematic of this challenge. How best to deal with this content versus context matter? First, use professional development to show teachers how the levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy work. Identify the power verbs for each level, remind them what students must be able to know and do at each level, and create questions at each level so teachers can hear the difference. Have teachers practice changing questions at the lower level to questions at the upper levels.



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After the professional development, spend ten minutes in teachers’ classrooms on a routine basis, capture every question the teachers ask during that time, and meet with them very soon after the observation to analyze the questions and talk about how to ask more at the upper level. Keep track of the number of questions asked at the school each month and how many were asked at the Application level or above. Report this running total during monthly faculty meetings. Determine if more professional development in questioning techniques is needed. The goal should eventually be to have students asking each other and their teachers questions at the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. When that happens, you will know they have a deep and rich understanding of the content. Having conquered the understanding of how what takes place in classrooms has moved from an art form and closer to a science, the administrator is next confronted with a number of challenges in conducting observations and evaluations. Meeting these challenges takes motivation, organization, and courage. PITFALLS AND SOLUTIONS Again, it must be pointed out that the purpose of any teacher observation system must be personal professional development for the individual teacher on whom the administrator is focused. If the administrator enters the process with the goal of terminating the teacher’s contract, the process is compromised from the onset. However, a by-product of the system correctly implemented will be sufficient evidence to create a paper trail with which the administrator may recommend dismissal to the board of education. Remember that only the board of education hires and fires staff. Administrators only make recommendations for such. If non-renewal is the ultimate recommendation, there are three tests that must be survived. The first, “Were the expectations known to the teacher?” is a basic question and one which must be affirmatively answered. It is fair and it is ethical. The second is “Were deficiencies identified and made known to the teacher?” Again, this is rightfully presented because anyone would want to know what the problem is with their performance. How can increased productivity be produced if the lack thereof is not revealed? Finally, “Was support provided?” This can be the challenging test because the administrator attempting to provide sufficient support may be accused of harassing the teacher if, in the mind of the teacher, too much is provided or deserting the teacher if, in the mind of the teacher, too little is shared.

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What teachers want in an observation and evaluation process is what everyone wants as an assessment of their job performance is determined. They want a professional, objective, and high-quality response to their performance. They want direction for improvement, they want inter-rater reliability at present, and they want inter-rater reliability over time. Don’t we all want the same? In fact, in the schoolhouse, if this is accomplished, and a teacher’s performance improves, student achievement will be stimulated, school culture will be bolstered, there will be more positive public relations for the school, and there will be less psychological stress for the appraisers. In addition, the school’s ethos will be positively impacted by the increased professional dialogue that will be established and sustained. There are several barriers to this process. Each can have a chilling impact on the successful implementation of any model used to observe and evaluation the school’s teachers. Each also has a remedy. When appraisers do not conduct themselves professionally, it fundamentally compromises the process. If an administrator is “out to get a teacher” because that teacher spoke out against the administrator’s favorite project during a recent board meeting, that is a problem. If an administrator claims to have been in the classroom for one hour and fifteen minutes when he was only there for twenty minutes, or if an administrator does not visit the classroom but merely produces a report that says he did, problems arise. There must be someone “watching the watchers.” Whether it is the principal at the school or a director or superintendent at the district level, someone must oversee the process to ensure that it is being implemented with both fidelity and integrity. If the process is rushed, it is reduced to a simple “paper pushing” experience. Remember that that which is being rushed is never as important as that for which it is being rushed. Teachers pick up on this immediately and a simple, “I know you just have to get this done for the district office,” statement explains it all. Teachers cannot view these procedures as simply perfunctory processes on the part of the administrator. The individual providing the oversight should require that these reports be submitted on a regular basis. Administrators don’t know how short the school year is until they are required to implement this process. Teacher contracts or board policy often include language that does not permit observations before the first full week of school or on the day before or after a vacation. Often, they must be completed by the second week of May. If two or three are not being completed per week, the time will come when they will be rushed. That simply cannot happen. Confidentially cannot be violated. The teacher can thumbtack his observation report to the wall in the teachers’ lounge, but the administrator cannot



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allow this information to be publically shared. Steps must be taken to ensure that everyone involved in the process is aware of this. The example used in graduate classes is a secretary, while preparing a report for the principal, receives a telephone call saying that her son fell off the monkey bars at recess at the elementary school. She was keyboarding the observation report into the computer. In a rush, she exits the office, leaving the report on her desk. The night custodian, while cleaning the office, reads the report and shares it with others. This is a clear violation of confidentiality, unintended yes but a violation nonetheless. There is no excuse for this, and the administrator will be held accountable. Administrators were teachers before becoming administrators. They typically taught one content area or grade level. Yet, when assuming the administrative position, they are required to provide oversight in all content areas and at all grade levels. They are not experts in the content of the classes they are observing. It is justifiable for a teacher to ask, “Who do you think you are to tell me how to teach Algebra III? When was the last time you taught Algebra III?” Administrators must earn the respect of the teaching staff, in terms of content knowledge, student behavior, pedagogy, and all the other nuances of the classroom. As an administrator, affiliate with as many professional organizations as you can, the four major content areas, administrator groups, research agencies, and staff development organizations. Skim the journals, review the content and speaker lists for their conventions, and do everything you can to identify the new trends . . . before they hit your schools. Create professional libraries at each school and send the journals to the schools with hints about upcoming initiatives. It helps. Also, use the preobservation conferences to become acutely aware of what will take place in the classes and why. Keeping abreast of new developments in education is a never-ending process, but the administrator who is well read in all areas will gain the respect of his staff, an important step for the success of the school. One does not ever want to provide advice about how to improve that the teacher sees as silly or not appropriate. That will kill the professional relationship faster than nearly any other development. And, once lost, that relationship will be difficult to rekindle. There is a shortage of time to complete this process. It would be nice if the state legislatures would reduce the number of supervised units required to earn the first, second, and third assistant principals in the schools. These efforts regularly fall on deaf ears since the common mantra of “There are too many administrators who are paid too much and have nothing to do” is still alive and well in our culture. What this means for the practicing administrator is the challenge of finding out how to complete all of these observations in a credible way while

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also handling all of the other responsibilities of the school. That means time at school before school in the morning and time at school after school in the afternoon and evening. It is not easy. School officials have much to deal with each day. Finding the time to understand the assessment instruments and use them effectively is not always an administrator’s top priority. It should be. This is ironic, for schools exist first and foremost to educate our children. Allowing other concerns to intrude on the effectiveness of that mission seems counterintuitive. A commitment on the part of the administrator to the promotion of effective instruction is an important variable that may be lacking in the school. Appraisers must receive training about how to conference with teachers. This may be becoming a lost art. Where to meet, how to sit, what to say, what to ask, what to observe as the teacher is talking, what topics to cover, the list goes on and on. How to handle a teacher who agrees to everything but does nothing, what to do with an arrogant teacher who becomes too aggressive during the conference, and a number of other topics are important to role-play and discuss. There must be training sufficient to build and sustain the confidence of the administrators as they hold these collegial conversations with staff. As part of this effort, you can create a diagram of a professional conversation to use and talk about the art of communication with administrators. Carl Glickman, in his book The Basic Guide to Supervision and Instructional Leadership, spends five chapters explaining the “Supervisory Behavior Continuum,” having appraisers moving from directive to non-directive behavior or vice versa. The trick is to have the administrators determine the maturation level of the teacher, with respect to the observed class, determine what the teacher needs, and appropriately apply that behavior. This is no easy task but an essential component of the observation cycle. Administrators must be able to play each of the roles, from directive to nondirective, and every role in between, as the situation requires. When board members do not support non-renewal recommendations administrators make, it can send shock waves through the school. It can take new administrators a while to learn and do this, but you have to remember that you can only do your job, complete only your work. If, when the recommendation is submitted to your superior(s), it is not acted upon in the way you hope, learn to psychologically “let it go.” You will have done your job; you will have sent forward credible evidence and documentation about why the recommendation was made and that was it. There could be any number of reasons why that recommendation would not be endorsed, most having more to do with political reasons than anything else. Let it go and move on your way. Inter-rater reliability should never break down. An immediate administrative supervisor should always be reading these reports. At the school level,



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the principal should plan to read each report. As a district office administrator responsible for principals, schedule two observation and evaluation workshops per year, one in the fall and the other in the early spring, with all of your appraisers to talk about the process, to share your observations of what you are reading in their reports, and to make plans to increase the inter-rater reliability of the process. One reflection comes from a first year of teaching, when teachers moaned about having the assistant principal observe them. “She’s a witch,” they pointed out, while admiring their colleagues who were fortunate enough to have the principal observe them. “He’s an old softy,” they countered with a smile. That inter-rater reliability problem has a way of eating away at the culture of the school. Just as important, each teacher deserves to have the same response to his or her performance, regardless of who is conducting the observation. Schools devoted to this process must have a model to assimilate new administrators into the rhythm, protocols, and values of their unique teacher observation and evaluation process. This is very, very important. Each administrator must proceed through the training model with someone at your district; shadow each one as he or she conducts a pre-observation conference, observe the teacher with the administrator, share your notes, watch as he or she conducts the post-observation conference, and review his or her report prior to it being given to the teacher. This should be continued until the administrator feels comfortable enough to “fly solo” in the classrooms. It is imperative to the fidelity of the process to assimilate new administrators this way. Too often, you will find that every administrative position you accept will have you dealing with the issue of personnel files that do not reflect the reality of what you view in the classrooms. You can guess how they read. Paraphrasing here, “Walks on water; incredible teacher; the best I’ve ever seen.” Then, when you see these people in action and reflect on the files, you will wonder who these people were who wrote the reports. Did they not know how to conduct observations? Did they not have the courage to write what they saw? Did these teachers, all of the sudden, make a left turn, a detour, away from competency? Knowing that it always has been, is, and always will be about the students, deal with the reality of what you view. One principal found himself in this kind of situation. During an open termination hearing for a teacher, the teacher’s attorney pointed out to the board that the teacher had been at the school for a dozen years and, for the first nine, he was an excellent teacher. The principal had been there for just three years and, all of the sudden, the teacher was up for termination. The problem, the attorney purported, wasn’t with the teacher; it was with the principal! The evidence contained in the teacher’s personnel file completely supported this assertion.

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What will be the legacy of leadership you leave at your position? You will not be there forever. You may be gone in a year, two years, or five. When your replacement opens up your files and reads them, what will he think of the job you have done? Principals must know the observation and evaluation processes of their school districts and follow them. This includes meeting the timelines. If this means the process must be started over because of inclement weather or illness, so be it. Remember that the purpose of the process is to improve the level of classroom instruction, not to catch teachers doing poorly so negative files may be generated. If a teacher is struggling, the principal will have plenty of opportunity to verify that fact. Prior to any recommendation for non-renewal finding its way to your board, your school attorney will ask you four questions. First, “Do you have guidelines?” If the answer is yes, “Did you follow them?” If not, stop. Do not proceed. Next, “Do you have timelines?” If the answer is yes, “Did you follow them?” If not, stop. Do not proceed. So often, an appellate body will not substitute its judgment for your judgment but will find favor with the teacher on technical grounds. You must meticulously follow all guidelines and timelines included in the process. The first review of your work should be about that. Assume that every document you provide the teacher in the observation process will be waved in front of your board of education in a public meeting by the teacher’s attorney who will ask, “Look at this work. Do you call this professional?” That usually gets people’s attention. There is absolutely no excuse for sloppy paperwork. It says that the administrator is rushing through the process; it tells the teacher the process is not important; it reveals work that is not professional; it tells the administrator’s supervisor that a new administrator is needed. The two biggest reasons to not renew a teacher’s contract are incompetence and insubordination. Incompetence is a challenge to prove; insubordination is not. If assistance is rejected by the teacher, that may begin the trail of documentation about a pattern of insubordination. And, if the teacher rejects the assistance, the administration must still follow up to determine if progress is being made. There exists a critical turning point in this process. As the principal is working with a teacher, providing assistance, and collecting data to support a recommendation for termination, the teacher is on the defensive. However, once the decision is made to recommend non-renewal, there is a dramatic role reversal which takes place. The teacher will assume the offensive position and the principal will be placed on the defensive. Everything the principal has done, not done, and will do will be questioned, as well as his or her motives for so doing or not doing. Understanding that



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this is a natural part of the process will serve to release the emotional stress which befalls those who do not make that realization. Teacher unions have a responsibility to protect their membership. That is their job. That’s their purpose for being. Don’t take it personally when your career is questioned by union staff and their attorneys. Do your job well and they will eventually recognize you as a credible professional with students’ best interests in your heart. The rights of due process for all employees must be safeguarded. Unfortunately, as a result of pressure from teacher unions and restrictive negotiated agreements, the process that will lead to termination becomes so complicated and lengthy that it nearly guarantees failure to any administrator who dares initiate it . . . nearly. That information notwithstanding, down this path you must go, lest your professionalism and your students’ education be marginalized. These are some of the challenges relating to the teacher observation process. Knowing them and taking steps to eliminate them will greatly improve your model, increase the professionalism of your appraisers, stimulate the performance of your teachers, and improve the achievement of your students. Aren’t those reasons enough to do it? TERMINOLOGY AND EVIDENCE The words we use in discussing teacher performance and making decisions about teacher performance are important. Reject the idea of subjective terminology in the process. Using terms like seldom, often, few, and most, for instance, has no place in the process. Those terms aren’t so much the problem when the teacher is satisfied with the report. However, when the teacher is unhappy, justifying the use of that kind of language will never be completed in the mind of the teacher. Consider having negotiated four teacher contracts and spending weeks discerning between the words, shall and should. Collect evidence: what the teacher said and did, and what the students said and did. Quoting the teacher is an excellent tool for the teacher to hear himor herself talking. If you can supply sufficient evidence, the teacher should come to about the same conclusion regarding the observed class as you do. Begin scripting television shows, taking great care to focus on one character and gather as much evidence as you can. Write that evidence and the context in which the behavior was demonstrated. That is extremely helpful in explaining the quality of the performance. This practice simply cannot be completed enough. Script, script, and script some more. That way, when you observe that first class for real, you will be better able to do a top notch job.

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POLITICS Like much of what is not right with public education, the insidious role that politics plays in the teacher evaluation process cannot be overlooked. When national and state teacher unions wield their major power in most federal and states’ legislative processes to soften even the best intentions of well-crafted laws, they pose a major problems for effective teacher observation and evaluation processes. Whether a politically connected teacher, who happens to be performing on a sub-par level, continuously uses that network to create an aura around himor herself, or whether local teacher unions continually vote in office local board members who are sympathetic, to a fault, to teachers’ shortcomings, the political persuasion is, more often than not, “hands-off” when it comes to realistically dealing with unproductive teachers. That’s too bad. The message sent to aspiring and practicing administrators is, “Act like you are doing something but don’t get too deeply involved with this. If you do, your job will be in jeopardy, not the teacher’s.” That’s why, despite the outflow of pontification, not much has changed in this arena . . . and not much will. That’s too bad because our children’s future is at stake. This is not a condemnation of all teachers but an acknowledgment that administrators’ efforts to rid the culture of unproductive teachers is compromised by local, state, and national political agendas that consistently work against them. OVERCOMPENSATION There is no shortage of critics pointing out the superior ratings of too many teachers while student performance does not increase to the level of meeting or exceeding standards on high stakes state assessments. Some school systems have responded to this by creating rubric language that is not only challenging to understand but guarantees that no teacher will reach the highest level. Consider this language in the “Highly Effective” cell of one four-point rubric examined, “Teacher’s plans and preparation reflect understanding of prerequisite relationships among topics and concepts and a link to necessary cognitive structures by students to ensure understanding.” Or, how would a primary teacher have her students accomplish this? “Instructional grouping is productive and appropriate to the students and enhances student learning and the instructional purposes for the lesson. Students self-monitor the productivity of the group and initiate adjustments as needed.”



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In an attempt to respond to the appropriate criticism concerning the aforementioned lack of alignment between teachers’ ratings and student academic performance, good-minded educators can create a system that is defective by design and ensures that those teachers who should be held up as examples for others are cast into the multitude of average educators. This will curtail enthusiasm, victimize morale, and stifle attempts at positive school reform. In most teacher observation systems, there is a component linking student performance to teachers’ success in the classroom. There are two very important viewpoints from which to discuss this development. First, isn’t that what teachers are paid to do? Was not stimulating increases in student success in reading, writing, and mathematics the very reason why those individuals majored in education, interviewed for and were given teaching positions, and continue to labor in our schools? It seems more than appropriate that judging their performance using student academic prowess is reasonable. However, there is another way to consider this matter. First, rarely are students really held accountable for their achievement. Seldom are they retained and far less are they denied graduation opportunities. There are many reasons for this but its reality causes far too many students to feign interest in their studies while their true intentions are much different. For teachers, the reality is holding them accountable for work done by students who, for too many, that work is meaningless. Teachers may be admirable planners of classroom activity, astute presenters of academic content, and more than capable evaluators of student work but, if those students don’t care, does it make any difference? One elementary teacher lamented of the fact that her very career was dependent on the performances of two dozen third graders in her class, a number of whom were not much interested in the daily instructional activities she used in class. Regardless, efforts by most state teacher unions have resulted in this student achievement component being neutered either by the process of elimination or they force shortcomings in this component to be the cause of intricate improvement plans being developed. The result? Student achievement and teacher performance remained distant cousins to each other. As states have begun the movement to assessment systems that measure growth from the beginning of the year to the end, another unfortunate development is taking shape. Perhaps in the name of seemingly increasing productivity at the classroom level, at the school level, and at the district level, there are growing reports of educators telling students to not try too hard in the fall. As these early depressed scores are compared with the end-of-theyear assessments in the spring, incredible growth may be verified. Or can it? There is another provocative development in the teacher evaluation debate. As reported in the March 2014 edition of the American Association of School Administrators’ School Administrator, there is growing interest in having

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students evaluate their teachers. It is not difficult to delve immediately into a deep and rich thought process regarding this proposal. At which age or grade level are students sophisticated enough to objectively determine the effectiveness of their instructors? What would be the teacher union’s response if some, but not all, teachers had student evaluative data impact their job status? Would not students’ perception of teacher performance be based more on the grades those students received from said teacher than for other reasons? What are the implications for teacher behavior in this scenario? Would some teachers dumb down the rigor in search of favorable student evaluations of their work? Would other teachers spend too much time on the important relationship aspects of making their classrooms work at the expense of the crucial curricular planning and decision-making? In the exciting world of teacher evaluation, this is but one more conversation sure to electrify those who must do the evaluating and those who will be evaluated. As much as possible, teacher evaluations systems must be cloaked in objectivity and fairness. While it is impossible to tease all of the subjectivity from the teacher evaluation process, steps can be taken to reduce its negative impact on those doing the observing and those being observed. As for fairness, that is in the eye of the beholder. Any system designed by man may be corrupted by man. The teacher evaluation process is no different. That’s why, regardless of where teachers are being evaluated, there must be a portion of the system devoted to “Who is watching the watchers?” Else, that system is destined to fall prey to appropriate criticism claiming instances of impropriety. SCENARIO 1 The reading scores on the fifth-grade state test have fallen for the past two years. There are three language arts teachers at that grade level: Buzz Saul, Anna Hime, and Marge Inal. When Principal Ella Mentary analyzed the scores, she found that the students in Inal’s classes had the lowest scores the past two years and were dragging down the grade level’s overall performance. Mentary checked the backgrounds of the fifth graders and found that the students had been equally distributed between the three teachers. Their socio-economic backgrounds, academic performance in fourth grade, and attendance were all about equal. Inal’s students were no different than those of Saul or Hime. Further, when Mentary observed Inal’s classes twice from September through December, she found Inal’s classroom management lacking (a lot of



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time was consumed keeping order, with Inal’s style for so doing often taking students off task) and her classes teacher-dominated (with over three-quarters of each observation consumed with Inal lecturing and students supposed to be taking notes [which about half were not]). Inal’s content choices not aligned with the state standards for language arts, and student participation was at a minimum (students were spectators, supposed to be listening and watching, which about half were not). Mentary decided to rate Inal as unsatisfactory for the school year. However, before Mentary could make that recommendation, she was obligated to have the district language arts supervisor, Jerry Rigged, observe Inal’s classes. During the middle of January, Rigged observed Inal and liked what he saw. Rigged shared the formal observation report with Mentary after he completed the post-observation conference with Inal. Rigged rated Inal favorably in all areas. Mentary must now decide what to do. She comes to you, the district human resources. What do you tell her and why? SCENARIO 2 Hank Ercheef is in his second year as principal at Jack O. Lantturn Middle School. During the assimilation process into his new position, Superintendent Herb Avore told him there were several teachers who had taught at the school long enough; Avore was fielding regular complaints about the trio, and student achievement data and office referral information suggested that the complaints were not unfounded. Ercheef spent “extra” time in the classrooms of the three teachers during his first year at the school and realized that all three were demonstrating subpar performances, each for a different reason. When he reviewed their files, he noticed that his predecessor did not leave him much support in terms of dealing with them. The performance information contained in their folders was benign. The new principal reflected on his assessment of the three. Jack B. Nimbel always seemed to operate on the edge of competence. Ercheef felt that Nimbel really didn’t have his heart in teaching, that he did just enough to get by, and that he was strategic, knowing when to turn in a quality performance to keep the administrators at bay. Herb Aside was a complainer, placing the responsibility for everything from challenges with his students’ achievement and behavior to his own questionable attendance on anyone and anything around him. He would brush aside any ideas Ercheef had for improvement with a swift, “That won’t work because . . .”

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The other Jack, Jack B. Quikk, would always swiftly put into action any recommendations Ercheef would make. The problem was that, when one problem was resolved, another would quickly surface. An example of this was how Quikk implemented an idea to reduce social conversation in his classroom that also minimized student participation which compromised their achievement data. Ercheef and his assistant principal, Will Ting, have been besieged with tasks from the state department, assignments from the district office, and the need to complete all of the evaluations for the thirty-eight teachers (eight non-tenured) at the school. They have also made it a point to maximize their visibility in the school and visit each classroom at least two times a day. Ercheef knows that putting three teachers on Individual Improvement Plans will multiply four times the amount of hours either he or Ting will have to spend with them. He comes to you for advice. What do you offer him?

Chapter 10

Special Education

There is a strange irony in the world of special education in public education. Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and other adults in children’s lives bring broken children to school. Too often, those children have been victimized by the behavior of those very adults into whom their future has been entrusted. Sometimes those adults used drugs or alcohol while the baby was in the womb; sometimes those adults allowed their children to swallow lead paint; sometimes those adults used drugs in the home and their children came into contact with them; sometimes those children were born to adults who weren’t adults, but children themselves; sometimes those children struggle with two adults who are not getting along very well at home or who have ended their relationship, the aftermath of which caused major problems for the children. Sometimes the adults abused their children to the point where they were taken from the home. These troubled children find their way to the schoolhouse door. The educators run tests, both academic and psychological, to determine the nature of the challenges impacting the children’s ability to fully take advantage of the educational opportunities afforded them. The educators communicate with the child’s physicians and other professionals outside the school to help determine the causes of the problem. The problems are identified and the educators are held responsible for taking corrective action . . . too often without the support of the very parents who caused the problems! In fact, parents may withhold a crucial element of that support (sometimes it is medication, sometimes some service), holding their own child hostage, in an attempt to force the school to provide some service that would not otherwise be needed if the parent would cooperate. Sometimes the parents deny educators the opportunity to communicate with their children’s physicians or other community health professionals who 157

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provide services. Those parents have the ability, even with the education system’s support, to sue the school people to get what they want. While it may seem cynical to cast this stereotype over all parents, it is a generality with distinction. There are parents who are loving supportive, cooperative, and patient with their children’s educators. Those parents’ children might have been victimized by any number of unfortunate circumstances, beyond the parents’ control, which caused the handicapping condition. So often, working together, the educators and those parents create plans that lead to some level of success for the children. That is an achievement to behold, when, during the Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting, both parents and educators can identify areas in which they have seen growth in the student, sometimes monumental growth, because they both worked hard to produce it. It is unfortunate that this is more of the exception than the pattern. The list of possible remedies is endless and includes costs in time, people, and money. That list includes, but is not limited to, presentation accommodations (visual, tactile, auditory, multi-sensory, and unique), response accommodations (response, material and devices, and other), timing and scheduling accommodations, setting accommodations, supplementary aids, services, program modifications and supports (instructional, programmatic, social/behavior, physical/environmental, and school personnel/parental), and an extensive list of special education services. The marrying of the student’s needs to the services, the implementation of those services, and the evaluation of their effectiveness is an exhaustive process. Another option available to parents is the creation of a 504 plan, a legal document that provides accommodations to regular education students with special needs in life activities. The 504 plan falls under the Rehabilitation Act, passed in 1974, and is a regulation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights. Some examples of major life activities addressed are caring for oneself, walking, seeing, hearing, and learning. A 504 plan is not an IEP for special education. Parents may request a meeting for the 504 plan for children who, with reasonable accommodation, can be successful in a regular education program. For each case, staff and family at the meeting will need to make a decision about how often to review the 504 plan and when follow-up meetings should be made. The very people responsible for creating the problem are given the support, even the power, to force educators, at great expense (in time, people, and money), to give them what they want. Educators have no way to balance this equation to exact a similar pressure on the parents. There has been, is, and always will be something very wrong with this formula for special education. True, there are plenty of students who are in



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need of support through no fault of their own . . . or their parents. And, there are very supportive and involved parents. However, the system appears to yield most to those parents who demonstrate a high level of arrogance and entitlement from educators who have limited resources to deal with the very problems some of those parents have created. And, if the educators balk, those parents “lawyer up” against the teachers and the school system has to pay for the parents’ attorneys! EXCESSIVE REGULATIONS No area of public education suffers from the plethora of policy and regulations as does special education. It is the most restrictively regulated process in public education and . . . perhaps the entire realm of our existence! The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act was enacted in 1975 and became effective in 1978. It was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1990. This act requires every participating state to offer to all children with disabilities a “free and appropriate education” and that those children be educated with children who are not disabled “to the maximum extent appropriate.” The act related to both the academic and behavioral functions of students with disabilities and created six steps for implementing the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act with each student, including screening, pre-referral actions, support team review, formal review for a comprehensive evaluation, the IEP team, and implementing the plan. To ensure that the policies, regulations, and timelines are meticulously followed, annual audits are conducted on the paperwork that is completed during the processes. Files are examined, records inspected, and onsite observations conducted. Also, some states now require that electronic IEP forms be completed and shared with the state as they are completed. There are timelines that must be strictly adhered to. Those timelines include contacting parents for invitations to meetings, timelines for getting reports to parents, timelines for getting minutes to parents, timelines for conducting assessments, timelines for reporting on those assessments, timelines for implementing strategies, timelines for conducting observations, timelines for the delivery of services on a weekly basis, the list goes on and on. And, when a parent promises to attend a meeting but fails to do so, the burden of completing the process under the identified time restraints returns to the special education teacher who feels the increasing burden of policy, regulation, and time. Regulations flow from the special education manual like waves crashing on the shore. They never end. Some border on the asinine. Every time a

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meeting is held with a parent, that parent must be given the “Parental Rights” packet and the parent must sign a form noting that he or she has been given such. Consider the cost of the paper for a parent who attends some three to four meetings a year for a dozen years and gets that same paperwork each time. Included in the “Parental Rights” packet are instructions about how to obtain a parent advocate, what to do if the parent is unhappy with the decision of the IEP committee, and so forth. It is an instruction manual designed to help the parent force the educators to give him or her what he or she wants. There is no small irony in that development. The balance of power shifts so powerfully in favor of the parents that they have access to support of an attorney (at the expenses of the school) to compel the educators to respond to their desires to their satisfaction. Imagine what it feels like to be a special education teacher, working her way through a meeting, being pressured by timelines, policy, and regulations, and being forced to respond to questions from an attorney, who will be paid by her school to interrogate her. And, when occupational or physical therapy services are required, the complications of arranging for the contacts with those providers, as well as scheduling for the delivery of those services, falls squarely on the shoulders of the special education teacher. Likewise, the contact and communication with outside agencies and physicians is the responsibility of the special education teacher. Only with the approval of the parent may the teacher make these contacts. That approval must be verified by the teacher capturing such contacts with a parental signature on a form. If the parent does not provide approval, the frustration builds because the process is now handicapped by the reluctance of the parent to provide permission to help solve the problem. The attention to the paperwork, or lack thereof, by the agency or physician, may slow the process to the point of exasperation on the part of the teacher and to the detriment of the student. While all of this attention to paperwork is capturing both the time and the attention of the teacher, he or she is also supposed to ensure that the instructional practices and interventions are being delivered as designed. By whom? By the teacher. Skillful parents employ devious methods to get what they want. One had a child diagnosed with profound attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder. The parent wanted a one-on-one tutor assigned to her child. The school balked at this idea because it was felt that, with the medication the student was taking and the skills of the content and special education teachers, the child would be able to be served in the regular setting. The parent immediately stopped giving the child the medication, which resulted in his behavior becoming very



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disruptive in the classroom and elsewhere in the school. She used him as a pawn in her strategy to get what she wanted. Given the above-noted developments in the field of special education, is it any wonder why this facet of public education experiences the highest turnover, on an annual basis? Teachers feel crippled in their attempts to create, supply, and evaluate the support for their needy children, often by the very parents whose children would benefit from that support but, more often, by the crushing pressure of policy and regulation thrust upon them by the very system created to support them. At times, the very language designed to support students denies them the services they need to be successful. An example of this is that special education edicts require assessments that are culturally and linguistically sensitive. In one case, a biracial elementary student repeatedly substituted “f” for “th” in pronouncing words. He could not qualify for speech services because it was determined that, since he was biracial, he was considered African American and this speech was considered Ebonics and an artifact of African American language, not a handicapping condition. MENTAL HEALTH CHALLENGES A long-held notion about public school educators is that, while they deliver quality instruction, they are also surrogate parents, helping students sift through the malaise that so often accompanies the transformation from childhood to adulthood—conflict resolution, peer pressure, decision-making, and much more. As economic conditions place more families in dire financial straits, and as the level of poverty continues to grow in some schools, consider whether public schools and those who labor in them are capable of dealing with this growing number and variety of needs. Teachers and administrators face a “perfect storm” relating to mental health issues. As economic pressures lead to public assistance agencies to “tighten their belts” by cutting staff and reducing services, that same economic pressure makes it more challenging for families to access community resources to support their children. Teachers and administrators were never trained to be psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, or mental health workers. Yet students come to school with mood disorders, reactions to lead-paint poisoning, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, generalized anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety, emotional disabilities, autism, Marfan and Tourett syndrome, depression, learning disabilities, legal blindness, and juvenile absence epilepsy, to name a few. Some students

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receive special education services; others do not. Some students receive medication; others do not. Some who receive medication do not take it regularly. They all arrive at school each day. Consider the plight of the classroom teacher attempting to instruct twentyfive to thirty students, some with one or more of these challenges. This teacher feels the drag of dealing with a child whose needs far exceed his or her ability to meet them. Crucial instructional time is constantly usurped, often resulting in falling test scores in a high stakes assessment culture. If a student is sent to the office, the administrator has little more training than the referring teacher. Meetings are scheduled, discussions held, parent involvement solicited, and plans implemented. The problem persists. Educators reach out to the community agencies. Once a meeting is scheduled, discussions are held again, parent involvement is again invited and encouraged, and plans are again drafted and put in place. The problem persists. This dilemma often unfolds with multiple students in the same class, which goes unacknowledged as educators are pressed to have students demonstrate academic prowess as a function of their own performance on high stakes assessments. This old paradigm simply is not working. If our public is so demanding, there must be full consideration to providing better support for these needy students. Else, our teachers will do less instructing and our students will do less achieving. TEAMING MODELS Teachers have always felt uncomfortable when another adult is in the classroom. When that other adult is a teacher, that angst is multiplied. Consider the complications of having two certified educators, one in special education and the other in content, working to create a stimulating, informative, and entertaining classroom for their students. If it works, and it rarely does, it is more the result of happenstance than any other factor. A dearth of training, workshops and otherwise, exists for schools who dare to use this model to support their students identified as having special needs. The teachers’ personalities often play a crucial role in how this relationship plays out. At times, one is dominate and the other subservient. This can happen where a senior content teacher uses a neophyte special education teacher



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like a classroom assistant, directing her to collect papers, create a new bulletin board, and grade papers. It can be awful. If, on the other hand, both teachers are either dominate or subservient, imagine the problems that ensue. They are either constantly arguing about who is going to do what or backing away from getting anything accomplished. It is the students who suffer in these kinds of situations. In an ideal world, the two will work together; they will plan together. The content teacher will be skillful in applying the accommodations to the special education students’ experiences and the special education teacher will sufficiently know the content to understand how to interject special points with those students who need it. The students will grow and prosper. If the two adults are working together in the teaming classroom, there is a sense of magic present where it is impossible to know which teacher is which and the handing off of the content from one teacher to the other is both effortless and seamless. Imagine the reaction of students in a fruitful and enriching classroom such as this. To ask that question, of course, is to answer it. While this scenario takes place in some classrooms, it is absent in far too many calls for more professional development, workshops, and teacher support for the teaming model. THE COST Critics of public education have long decried the fact that, while the cost of schooling has multiplied, the associated increases in student achievement have not kept pace with those increases in spending. There is a simple reason for this. Those rising costs have not been associated with the general population in our nation’s schools; they have mostly been associated with special education. During one superintendent’s tenure, the costs of educating the students in special education increased by a multiplier of four during one five-year period. Why? It was due to the increased number of students being identified with special needs, their needs being more profound, and the spiraling costs of finding and implementing programs to meet those needs. Consider the costs of having just one student attending a residential treatment center for a year. For a small, rural, less wealthy school district, those staggering resource requirements may be the breaking point for the school system and its taxpayers. Finding the resources to supply the services required for some students is a difficult task. One particular student needed speech and hearing support at a school system. With no speech and hearing therapist on staff, and none to be interviewed, the superintendent’s only option was to secure the services of an

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agency from the closest city. The clock began running, and the bill rising, as the therapist left the office for the two-hour drive to his school one day each week and ended with the conclusion of the two-hour return trip. That was quite a sum for the actual time spent with that student! That’s why, during IEP conversations, thinking must be had relative to the needs of the student, the costs of providing those needs, and the best avenue to make those provisions a reality. This is not to say that cost is the major factor in determining what the best plan for a student would be; it is not. However, some consideration must be had regarding how best to complete the task in the most creative and economical way. Costs may be considered another way. If the total of the salaries of the people participating in the IEP meeting is calculated for the time spent in the meeting, if the cost of attorneys is added, if the cost of the time to complete the paperwork is included, if the cost of the actual paper needed to make the copies is calculated, if the cost of securing those services is part of the equation, if the entire of the expense for just one student is realized, most rational people would experience “sticker shock” at the expenses associated with the special education process. THE LABEL There was a time when parents feared their children being labeled as needing special education services because of the stigma of being in special education which may have resulted. They were also concerned (and rightly so) that both expectations and level of educational services might be lowered for their children. That time has apparently passed us by. The label can be a valid reason, on the part of some parents, to escape accountability, either for the student or for themselves. Some parents now “look for the label” with the hope of garnering additional services for their children. Foster parents benefit financially from the children under their care being so labeled. Some parents use the label to explain away any form of dysfunctional behavior on the part of the child saying simply “Well, he has attention deficit/ hyperactivity disorder” or “Look as his IEP; he can’t help himself.” That is both disturbing and harmful to school officials who are attempting to correct the student’s behavior with parental support. Other parents use the label to attempt to bring honors or awards to students who do not deserve them. They feel that the label explains why their child couldn’t or didn’t do his or her homework and still deserves some academic honor or why he or she couldn’t or wouldn’t attend school and still deserves attendance recognition. This list could go on and on.



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Another important matter about labeling deals with the helpfulness or hurtfulness of accommodations. Both teachers and parents should constantly be asking themselves if the accommodations are enabling or disabling. If, for instance, a teacher always reads aloud to the student, can that student gain the impression that he or she no longer needs to learn to read for his or her own benefit? Too often, this kind of caretaking of accommodation is lost in the paperwork, the service delivery, or the evaluation. It shouldn’t be. Our children’s future is resting on it. SCENARIO 1 Elementary Assistant Principal Frank Lee Speaking is chairing an IEP meeting for fifth-grade student Marc Down. In attendance for the December meeting are Marc’s father, Stan Down, special education teacher I. B. Normal, fifth-grade teacher Patti Cake, and school psychologist Buzz Awlf. The meeting is an annual review which means that Marc’s progress on identified goals will be reviewed and plans will be made for continued support, the nature of which has yet to be determined. That support will include both goals and accommodations the committee feels are needed in order for Marc to reach those milestones. Normal begins the discussion by reviewing Marc’s progress to date. His reading scores for the end of the previous year showed him reading at a first-grade level, three years behind. Through the first half of the present school year, Marc’s fluency and comprehension skills showed dramatic improvement. He was now reading at a third grade and four months level. The progress for mathematics was not as dramatic. Marc ended his fourthgrade year with mathematics skills at about kindergarten level. They had improved to the first-grade level thus far during this school year. Cake supported both reports and distributed samples of Marc’s work in both reading and mathematics to the members of the committee. In addition, she pointed out, it is difficult to keep him on task. “It seems like his mind is wandering all over the place.” Awlf reported on the results for Marc’s educational and psychological assessments. Because the school system uses a discrepancy model, where the difference between Marc’s psychological and educational assessments must be at least twenty points, Marc still qualifies for special education services, he shared. He supported the fact that Marc was doing better in reading than mathematics. Down said, while he was pleased that Marc had shown some progress, he wasn’t happy that his son was still lagging too far behind his peers. “Can’t you help him catch up,” he pleaded. His tone became stronger. “I pay taxes to

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support this school and I expect my son to get a quality education. If I don’t get that, I’m going to the governor.” Normal quickly responded with a number of accommodations he felt would be essential to stimulating Marc’s academic growth. “We can give him extra time to complete his assessments,” Normal began, “We can ensure that he gets frequent checks for understanding.” Cake nodded in agreement, wanting to appease the father as well. “Also,” Normal continued, “I think a calculator would suit him well. That way, instead of having to struggle with the computational issues of a mathematics problem, he can concentrate on identifying the correct algorithm to apply to it.” Cake acquiesced again. Awlf remained silent as Down nodded his head in agreement. Speaking now finds himself in an academic conundrum. He wants Marc’s academic performance to improve, he wants Marc’s father to be pleased with the school’s efforts, and he wants to support his teachers. However, he knows that Normal did not present any data to support either of the accommodations that have been identified as needing to be added to Marc’s IEP. Absent that data, Speaking knows the likelihood of their being successful is suspect. What should Speaking do? SCENARIO 2 Elementary Assistant Principal Earl Lee was looking for avenues to positively stimulate the male population of his school in terms of academics, attendance, and behavior. He decided to create a “Gentlemen of the World” club in which boys in the fourth and fifth grade would meet twice a month to engage in activities that would promote all three avenues of their development. Protocols for student membership in the club were created and a schedule was developed. These were shared with the students and their parents. Since the club would meet after school on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month, parents would have to ensure that they would be able to pick up their sons one hour after school was over on those days. Also, the students in the club were required to wear a shirt and tie for each and every activity that the club held or sponsored. Invitations were sent out to the parents of all males in the fourth and fifth grades with a deadline for their return. The forms were collected, membership identified, and the meetings began. A sense of excitement was created as both the students and the parents enjoyed the meetings, the guest speakers, and the field trips. Matters were going well as the calendar moved into the spring.



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To make sure that student participation was maximized, the day prior to each meeting, Lee reminded each student to remember to wear a shirt and tie the next day. While not all students remembered, participation for each meeting was maintained at about 95 percent. For one meeting in late April, Lee noted that Tommy Gunn was not wearing a shirt and tie. He told Tommy that he could not stay for the meeting and would have to go home on the bus as he normally did. About one-half hour after the meeting, Lee took a call from Tommy’s father, Pop Gunn, who was very upset that Tommy was sent home rather than having an opportunity to stay for the meeting. Lee explained the rules and reminded Gunn that Tommy had complied with them all through the year. He also reiterated to Gunn that he had met with each of the boys the day before and reminded them. Gunn shot back, “Well, you know Tommy has autism. He shouldn’t be asked to remember things like that.” Lee also reminded Gunn that he had received a schedule for each of the meetings at the beginning of the year and he could have referred to that. Gunn slammed the telephone ending the conversation. During the club’s final meeting, awards were handed out. Most students received a participation award. Four received major trophies for exemplifying the true meaning of being a gentleman. Lee explained, “I asked your teachers, your bus drivers, everyone who works with you. We considered your class work, your homework, your behavior, your attendance, how you handled yourself in your classes, in the halls, in the cafeteria, and on your school buses. We looked at you from the beginning of the school year until now, almost the end of the year. We hope everyone looks to getting one of these trophies in the future.” As the meeting ended, Tommy approached Lee and asked why he didn’t get one of the trophies. “I’ve been good,” he said. Lee explained that the cafeteria monitor reported that Tommy would not stop talking when it was time to be silent. This pattern had continued through the year. Tommy shrugged and left. About a half hour later, Lee received a call from Tommy’s father who was angry and demanded to know why Tommy didn’t get one of the major trophies. Lee explained and said he was sorry that Tommy didn’t get one and that he hopefully would be able to learn from this experience. “I’m sure you are sorry,” Gunn replied sarcastically. “To deny my son this trophy just because he was talking in the cafeteria is bull%#@.” Tommy had told his father that just four students had received the trophies. Gunn asked Lee if the four were his favorites. Lee explained the process he used to make the selections but Gunn wasn’t interested. “I haven’t liked the way you people handle awards since my son has been at this school,” he yelled. “It’s bull%#@.” The telephone slammed and the conversation was over.

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Lee comes to you, a friend, to talk about this matter. On the one hand he feels sorry for Tommy that he didn’t participate in the one meeting or get the trophy. On the other hand, he feels that allowing Tommy to participate in the meeting or giving him the trophy he didn’t deserve sends a message to both Tommy and the other members of the club that accountability doesn’t matter. What do you tell him?

Chapter 11

Politics

If America’s public schools are anything, they are political entities filled with competing interests. Long have politicians boasted of their plans to improve public education while they have little or no expertise or experience to support their claims. In fact, there are those who would argue that our country’s public education system is to be marveled at and is a model for the world. We do educate more children for a longer period of time than any other country. We do not cast aside those who struggle to participate, those whose behavior is atrocious, those whose academic status is sub-par, or those who have no interest in their education. We continue to nurture, cultivate, motivate, and educate. What other nation does such? Impossible goals are thrust upon educators such as having every single student, despite any handicapping condition or irrespective of any language barrier, meet some ill-contrived point level on some commercially produced high stakes assessment. Tests are administered before teachers are trained and curriculum developed, students do not “measure up to expectations,” and the cycle repeats itself. It is ludicrous to the zenith. Yet it continues. The political interest in schools comes from the federal level, state houses, and local entities. Often, the wants and desires at each level are not aligned and cast the educators in lose-lose situations where whatever they do they will be criticized. Educators understand that federal law trumps everything else. Indeed most state education agencies have staff whose sole responsibility is interpreting and monitoring the implementation of federal mandates. A complicating factor with local educators following those mandates is that they often come unfunded. And, with limited budget options, following those mandates 169

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creates an entirely different set of problems as those precious resources must be taken from somewhere else. It is with great regularity that one can hear administrators lamenting another “unfunded mandate” from the federal level. Trying to get some audience or explanation for the need for absolute compliance can also be frustrating. How often has it been heard, when asking why or who of those staff responsible for interpretation and monitoring of federal mandates, “It’s the feds.” They are likened to the anonymous, invisible ghosts who can never be identified and discussion with them is not to be afforded. State law, local policy, and contracts are also major players in guiding and often confusing educators who do their best to follow “the letter of the law.” Consider federal safe school mandates that instruct educators to take specific actions if guns, weapons, or explosives are brought into schools. Those regulations are to be followed exactly . . . unless the offending student has protection under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. If the student is afforded that protection, an entirely different path must be taken. As educators struggle to implement a plethora of diverse laws, rules, and regulations, the interpretation of those mandates often serves to befuddle those well-intended staff even more. Contemplate those administrators and teachers caught in a separation of church and state issue; they likely did nothing to cause their embroilment but now find themselves as unwilling participants as attorneys for both sides dig their teeth into the fruitful lawsuits that ensue. Consider the plight of an elementary school principal in Frisco, Texas, who, in defiance of the Texas law called the “Merry Christmas Law” (which directed that students and staff members were permitted to discuss the holidays as they pleased), in December of 2013 banned Christmas trees and the colors red and green from a winter party. This is political correctness on steroids. It was reported that she did this in an ill-fated attempt to avoid offending anyone during the holiday season. What she failed to realize is that these values issues swing both ways. When you satisfy one group with this kind of action, you offend the other group by the same action. If nothing else, schools are hotbeds for values clarification behavior, which is never-ending. Taking this kind of thinking to the extreme, a thought not far from reality, what would happen to a staff member or student who uttered “God forbid,” “good heavens,” “holy cow,” or “Lord have mercy” at the same school? And, while she was at it, she could have used the “separation of church and state” dictate to further reinforce discouraging some forms of profanity. Could not all schools someday be painted a bland gray inside, and all forms of speech about which anyone feels offended will be denied? Those schools won’t be much to look at, and there won’t be much to say, much less debate. Is this the kind of culture our founders imagined?

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Another example is an elementary school in Connecticut in 2014, where the principal, claiming health fears, proclaimed that no candy was to be attached to Valentine’s Day cards traded in the school. One teacher in the school reportedly communicated with her students’ parents that, instead of a party, they were going to have academic Valentine activities. This troubling pattern is not evolving only behind the schoolhouse doors. There are two words you can use that are sure to get you fired as soon as their sound leaves your lips. One begins with the letter “n” and the other starts with the letter “g.” As our policymakers feel the pressure to legislate politically correct human relations, one must ask, “Where will it end?” Or, “Has it stopped short of shielding everyone from unwelcomed criticisms?” Surely we want people to be nice to each other; not a single person rejoices at the sting of a disparaging remark hurled in his direction. But, think of all of the words used to describe members of other ethnicities, from the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the Polish, to the Haitians, to Italians, to the . . . should not something be done to protect those people for the scorn of harsh words? Not limiting criticism to ethnicity, reflect on the jokes made about people who are a little heavy, aesthetically challenged, height limited, bald, logic deprived, odor enhanced, old, or who suffer from any other condition which could be used to critique or make fun of them. In fact, three-quarters of the late night talk show hosts’ monologues would be forfeit absent this important material they use to amuse their guests. Also, “adult” cartoons such as Family Guy, South Park, etc., would be reduced to dealing with the boring and mundane minutia of life if they were denied this fodder. Could it be that our policymakers have opened up Pandora’s Box as the next victim of some hurtful comment “lawyers up,” takes the matter to court, and asks why some other guy’s predicament is worse than his? Of course, there is another strategy that would preempt the work of the policymakers and the judges: we could all simply be nice to each other. Another troubling development for the hard working educator is that a lot of legal issues that impact schools do not come from education law but from other legal venues that intertwine with the business of education. Whether the matter has to do with setting tax rates, search and seizure, freedom of speech, or a vast array of other issues, reading only education law will not serve the educator well. He must be well versed in much more than the pages of code identified as education. Every part of education is about politics, and it is politics that grind effective schooling practices to a halt as school people struggle to understand and implement the ever-changing “rules of the game” thrust upon them by politicians seeking only to make a name for themselves and using school children as a pawn to do it.

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GOVERNMENTAL POLITICS Governmental politics have a hierarchy. They begin with federal law and unfold with state law and local board policy in that order. Sometimes people will say something like, “Our school policy is . . .” That is incorrect. Only local boards of education can make policy. One definition of local policy is, “The values of the community, put in written form, by a group of people, either elected or appointed, by the critical mass of that community.” What is critical mass? It is one more than half of the people who participated. This discussion includes contracts as well, the contracts with different employee groups in a school system such as administrators, teachers, bus drivers, support staff, and so on. Some school districts have just two contracts, one with professional staff and the other with certified staff. Educators attempting to follow the “letter of the law” must be careful to not look only at education law. In fact, much of the law that governs schools comes from other areas at the federal and state levels. Contractual law, search and seizure, free speech, the ability to levy and collect taxes, and so forth will not be found by researching only education law. An example of this is the First Amendment to our Constitution, which provides for freedom of religion, expression, peaceful assembly, and petition. School administrators have had more than enough challenges dealing with people’s creativity with respect to this amendment. Amendment Four deals with unreasonable search and seizures and also finds its way into the school in the form of dealing with confidentiality of records, interrogation of pupils, and the proceedings of juvenile court. Due process is guaranteed by Amendment Five. This may deal with discipline proceedings regarding both students and staff. Amendment Six is somewhat related to Amendment Five in that it provides for, among other concepts, a speedy trial and an impartial jury. Corporal punishment is the major school issue relating to Amendment Eight, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. Amendment Nine guarantees the rights of the people and states that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or discourage other rights retained by the people. Amendment Ten dictates that the powers that are not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it are reserved to the states. The Fourteenth Amendment states that “no state shall make a law which abridges the rights of citizens in the United States nor deny anyone the equal protection of the law.” It further directs that all citizens, including children, are protected by this amendment. The Supreme Court asserted in Tinker v Des Moines School District that, “Students do not surrender their rights at the schoolhouse door.”

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At times, it appears as though the law contradicts itself. Surely, the nuances of the words that govern what takes place in school sometimes defy interpretation. In those instances, people give their own meaning to the words and the situations end up in court, being explained by a judge or jury. Take, for instance, a situation where federal gun-free school law language dictates that a student who brings a weapon to school be expelled from the school. Who could argue with the fact that this would make schools safer and would send a powerful message about the importance of people following this statute? The matter becomes clouded, however, if the student who brings a weapon to the school has protection under special education law. After a manifestation hearing is conducted, the result of that student’s behavior might be much different than a student not having said protection. Does this difference cause schools to be not as safe? Do the special circumstances of this singular student override the needs of the entire school population? This discussion is far greater than just schools as our society is grappling with this matter in the aftermath of shootings in schools, movie theaters, medical facilities, and the Philadelphia Naval Yard. Local school policy, like federal and state law, should not be easy to change. Neither should it be impossible to change. Typically, policy development protocols include a review panel composed of the diversity that is that school district, multiple readings by the board of education to give the public opportunity for input, and an analysis by the school board attorney to ensure that no wording is in contrast to either federal or state statute. As previously noted, policy language should be broad based and valueladen. The language that gives life to that policy is called regulation and the forms necessary to enact that language are included as exhibits. For example, suppose a board of education adopts broad policy language indicating its interest in making the school facilities available to the school district’s community. This would certainly make better use of the buildings and grounds and serve to foster improved school and community relations. The regulations would deal with such matters as the timelines that individuals would have to submit forms to use the facilities and when board vote on approval would be conducted, whether profits and non-profits would be charged a different fee and what that fee would be, whether the charge would increase if air conditioning or heat or the kitchen would be necessary, and whether a school official need be present during the event. The need for the regulation language would be as specific as the school and community deem necessary. The exhibits would be the forms to collect the aforementioned information to make decisions regarding cost, approval, and special circumstances. Signatures, dates, and copies complete the files for all building use activity. That way, it is possible to gauge the public’s interest in such endeavors.

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One particularly interesting case dealing with the complications of implementing rules and regulations involved a request by some students to hold an afterschool bible study at a school. That seemed to be a fairly benign request until it was noted that a teacher would have to be present as a monitor. The problem was that policy language forbids using public school funds to pay for religious activities. The teacher would not be present unless the pay was allowed. If the teacher was not present to provide supervision, the activity could not be held. That presented as a major challenge since it would be the only activity denied during that school year. There is an old adage that goes “When in doubt, check the policy.” That is really bad advice. A much better piece of guidance is, “Know your policy and you will never be in doubt.” That will help the administrator prevent situations from being problematic. Another mark of the true leader is to create the policy language before it is needed. Imagine attempting to develop sexual harassment language for your school board as the district attempts to resolve a case of sexual harassment. The best strategy for being on the “crest of the wave” with respect to proactive policy language is to be well read, to be aware of what the “hot items” are at national conventions, to be ever watchful regarding current events in our culture, and to be in constant conversation with your board of education and teacher union leadership about those matters. RELATIONSHIP POLITICS Negotiating the treacherous waters of the complex network that deals with people’s relationships is always a challenge for educational leaders. Knowing the extended family trees as well as the formal and informal relationships that exist in a school system will serve the leader well when confronted with decisions that have major impact on people’s lives. Those decisions could involve personnel decisions, academic choices, eligibility cases, litigation, or a vast array of other situations in which people find themselves. Relationship politics may be played out with adult and child, teacher and parent, teacher and teacher, teacher and administrator, parent and parent, with any number of other combinations coming into play. Understanding these personal connections and how they impact the efficiency of the school system or school is of paramount importance to the educational leader who, absent such, will be mystified by why events take place the way they do. During a public termination process for a high school teacher who had demonstrated both incompetence and insubordination during his tenure, a seasoned colleague of his met with the superintendent before one of the meetings. “I’m pleased that someone is finally doing something about him,”

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she said. “He hasn’t really been a positive member of our faculty for over ten years.” The superintendent listened to her as she gave some examples to support her claims. “But,” she inserted, “since he is a member of our union, I have to stand with him this evening.” Being as graceful as a superintendent could be, he leaned forward and responded to her, “If he is still here when your daughter gets to our high school, I’m going to make sure she is in his class.” Her eyes widened as she got up and left his office. Personalities may impact the relationships with which you are dealing. It is not possible to know all of the past experiences people have shared. Another superintendent encountered an interesting one. It involved a principal who would be evaluating the ex-husband of his wife. That had to be corrected to prevent even the appearance of impropriety. Knowing who vacations with what friends, which person’s daughter is a babysitter for what board member, who attended school together, who used to be friends and are now not talking with each other is all helpful in understanding why events evolve the way they do and can be crucial in deciding how to deal with those events. Another situation occurred in which a school administrator had to deal with two elementary teachers working at different schools. One had the daughter of the other in her class. The daughter’s father was the president of the local teachers union. The daughter’s mother had a lot of contact with her daughter’s teacher, too much the teacher felt. So, the teacher sent a message to her principal complaining about the verbosity and attempts at manipulation the mother was demonstrating and, by accident, she included the mother’s e-mail address on the communication before she pushed the magic button to send it. This was not an easy matter to negotiate. Fortunately, the school principal had a healthy relationship with the president of the local teachers union, which made the process more productive. Developing those relationships with the union leadership is very important. As a principal or superintendent, make it a practice to meet weekly with the building leadership or district union president. This will enable you to solve developing matters before they reach the crisis level. One superintendent recalled a time when he was talking with the district union president and she shared with him that there was a problem. He asked her what it dealt with. She said it concerned him. He asked her to explain. She said the word had gotten to her that he was forcing first-year teachers to meet with him before school for the post-observation conferences. He responded that he always made it a point to suggest those meetings so he could protect their planning time during school. He added that they always agreed that that was a good idea. “Look,” she pointed out. (They had a very trusting and open relationship.) “They are

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first-year teachers and you are the superintendent. What do you expect them to say?” That was an epiphany for him. His perception was that he was trying to help them; they felt he was forcing them to come to school early. It was productive for the union president to be able to point that out to him. Now, he had only to deal with the cognitive dissonance which followed. Another aspect of relationship politics plays itself out when schools are closed due to snowy conditions. What are people thinking when they hear that only “essential” employees are to report and that they are to report by 10:00 a.m.? What does that mean to you if you are in the custodial group and must report? Are you happy to be one of the few “essential” employees? Does this term lessen the fact that everyone else has the day off yet you must report? How do you feel if you are numbered in any one of the array of other employee groups? Is food service staff not “essential”? Is clerical staff not “essential”? Are teachers and administrators not “essential”? It seems a curious term to use for just that special circumstance, when a singular group of employees must report while the rest of the staff rests comfortably at home. NEGOTIATIONS There are some strategies that that can enrich the negotiations process and help all parties arrive at agreeable points for both sides of the table. The first is to attempt to remove the table. A most fluid negotiation processes can be experienced by having your board members, administrators, and teachers participate in a professional development activity which will have them argue the other side’s positions. This will give everyone an opportunity to see the process “through different eyes.” When that experience is over, rather than having the teams sit on opposite sides of the table, have all negotiators alternate seats around the table. It will be remarkably successful. However, before commencing on a path such as this, there must be an immense level of trust and transparency present. Absent that, a strategy such as this is doomed before it begins. Restructuring the membership of the negotiating teams as you begin the process for the next contact will help you bring some fresh thinking to the table and expand the number of people who understand both the process and the language. Keep some of the membership intact to sustain the transition from one contact to the next. Of course, the district business manager and human resource officer should be mainstays because of the process’s impact on the district’s resources.

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It is not possible, for people not involved in the process, to appreciate the time and toll it takes to bring a contractual process to fruition. It can take nearly three sessions to understand the difference between the two words “should” and “shall,” and the impact they will have on the meaning of the contract language. Sometimes the grievance process is used to clarify and interpret language for the existing and future contracts. It is very interesting how many different perceptions may be had on a few simple words. At times the overwhelming perception is not what the two negotiating teams had intended. The result is a misalignment between contract theory and contract practice which must be cleared up as soon as possible. Language is too often more expensive than numbers. Verbiage about the limits of class size, length of planning periods, and so forth can cost much more than the negotiated salaries and extra pay for extra duty schedules. A final word about contracts is that once language is included in the document, it is very difficult to remove. Don’t be an advocate of responding to each teacher union request with a resounding “No!” However, caution should be used and deliberations exhausted before making major changes to a contact that is serving the district well. DEMOCRACY BY DEFAULT People remark that the local board of education election is the purest level of democracy. You can touch your office holders! There have been too many times that the effusive nature of transitioning from an appointed board of education to an elected one lasts not more than three years. During that time span, the interest in local board elections more than wanes and the search begins for candidates who may wish to “cast their hats into the ring.” State legislatures annually attempt measures to create more interest in local board elections, looking at the number of years that must be served, considering making board of education spots paid positions, linking them to the national elections, and the like. This tinkering typically does not happen and the dearth of candidates usurps the local board elections of the potential to be the quintessential model of democracy in action. When elections are held (in too many cases, only one candidate negates that), voter turnout is so low that a candidate with any kind of political savvy is surely to arise the winner. It is surprising that teacher unions do not seize upon these opportunities to people local boards of education with members to their liking. Perhaps even they have succumbed to this growing participation apathy on the part of the masses.

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What happens when local board elections spiral into the “democracy by default” conundrum? Single issue candidates grasp this opportunity to turn the local board of education into their own sounding board, often turning on a teacher who they feel mistreated their child, coach for whom their offspring did not get sufficient playing time, or administrator who did not do something to their liking. The entire culture of the school system can turn on a single board election. One person can turn a right-minded board of education into a micromanaging machine, moving from the process of values clarification and policy development into delving into every decision made in the school system. That kind of atmosphere typically results in a high rate of turnover, low morale, and inefficiency in the school system. Appointed school boards are favorable over elected ones. Elected school boards are another example of “in theory, practice and theory are the same; in practice they are not.” In practice too often elected boards of education simply do not function in the manner which would make them everything an electorate would dream of. The apathy, on the part of both candidates and voters, has allowed too many elected boards of education to wallow as a pathetic example of competing values held by individuals who want their own way, even if it is at the expense of the very people they are there to serve, the community, to assist, the staff, and those they are there to provide for, the students. Does this mean that every elected school board is dysfunctional? Certainly not. Some readers may take umbrage with this stand on this matter. However, the preponderance of experience in this field suggests strongly that appointed boards are superior to elected boards in their level of efficiency in running school systems. AN OXYMORON OF ECLECTIC PROPORTIONS Considering the unenviable position in which the government and politicians have placed our public schools, this matter should be called an oxymoron of eclectic proportions. Here are some examples. While politicians at all levels of government sound off about the need for schools to “do something” about the increase in sexual promiscuity on the part of our youth, school people are battling a culture which does anything but. Consider everything from advertisements for automobiles to glossy fullpage advertisements for jewelry and perfume. What message does that send to our youth? As our youngsters watch movies and consider the decisions they are making, alcohol becomes a valuable commodity if one wants to be popular,

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funny, and well-liked by his or her peers. Movie-goers pay handsomely to view this type of behavior on a routine basis. Violence goes the same way as alcohol and, perhaps, drugs. The motionpicture industry is contemplating making a change in how its ratings are assigned as a result of the increasing amount of violence contained in many films. We can add video games to the list of issues dealing with violence. And, if you want to get full dollar value sex, violence, and profanity, attend a Broadway play and you’ll get it for $150 a ticket. The message for our youth is what? They are being de-sensitized by the blood and guts spilled all over their gaming screens with more and more games that are sold. Everyone wants children to eat better, to lead healthier lifestyles. So do educators. However, when the fast food industry blasts the television screen with the latest low cost triple-decker burger, swimming in some fat-laden sauce, what can be done? The explosion of buffets also sends a well-understood message to children. For the least price, eat as much as you can. School people too often are asked to solve problems that the greater culture cannot and unravel challenges that defective governmental practices have created. The failure of national immigration reform led to tens of thousands of undocumented non-English children being thrust into neighborhood schools across the country in the fall of 2014 with little or no resources of support from state and federal governments. Educators found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to meet the needs of these students while responding to high stakes test results, school safety, and a plethora of other issues on a regular basis. As these students pull at test scores, student attendance rates, and behavior issues, those same educators will come under fire for “not doing something” when those responsible for delivering those students to the schoolhouse door did nothing but deliver them. Another recent example of this dynamic is schools’ response to the Ebola breakout in October of 2014, when school districts in Ohio and Texas closed when news that some students and staff possibly could have come in contact with Ebola patients. The response from the public was divided over school officials’ decisions, some agreeing that it was the correct choice to ensure student and staff safety while others claimed it was an overreaction to the situation. What is the educational leader to do? These kind of public reactions most often manifest themselves when schools must be closed due to fog, ice, or snow, or when those conditions cause either delayed openings or early dismissals. Superintendents let their publics know that the health and safety of their students and staff come first. If they are to err, it will be to that end. They are predictable and in concert with the values of their school communities. Still the critics bark at decisions to not hold school because of the weather.

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How administrators and teachers use time in school has also come under fire. However, when this plethora of mandates is thrust on the school people, the time to implement them must be carved out of an already overscheduled day, leaving fewer hours and minutes for attention to reading, writing, and arithmetic. Then comes the call for higher test scores. One of the most interesting mandates is that many states list volunteerism as a graduation requirement. If the act is mandated, is it truly volunteerism? Yes, students may get in the habit of volunteering if they do it more. However, how many of those who developed and voted for this mandate spend one hour a week volunteering themselves. The point is this. Students aren’t dumb. They know what our values are by how we act and how we spend our time. If adults talk a lot about some matter but act contrary to their words, students will see what the true value is and act accordingly. We must have more adult role models if we are truly to turn juvenile behavior around. In fact, if we do not like what we see in our youth, we must first look in the mirror. We are undergoing a mammoth values clarification experience in our culture, the results of which could change our lives for generations. Hopefully we will get it right and act in a way consistent with our expectations for our children. BOARD AND LEADER RELATIONSHIPS There is no disagreement among educational theorists that the relationship between the superintendent and the board of education is fundamental to the efficiency and effectiveness of the school district. Why discern between efficiency and effectiveness? It is possible to be efficiently ineffective as a school system. It is possible to establish and sustain protocols at the optimum level yet have those systems not result in anything remotely advantageous to students. Yes, school systems can also be ineffectively efficient. One place this may be most visible is with a board of education that strays from the business of values and policy and begins to overtake the school district’s management system. It is possible for the educational management team to be so consumed with responding to every wish of the individual members of the board that they have no time left to apply to the running of the school system. It is possible for board meetings to be reduced to administrators reporting on every aspect of the operations of their areas to the extent that they have little time for anything but gathering data for the next board of education report. Searching for answers to questions dealing with the minutia of their work will result in them creating reports about the ineffectiveness of their areas of responsibility!

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To inject some balance into this discussion, it is crucial that the superintendent regularly keep the members of the board of education informed. The process for so doing should be mapped out clearly early in the superintendent’s tenure. Is a telephone call to the board president sufficient? Should weekly written mailings be the format? Or, will e-mails or telephone calls to the president or each member be the model for this communication? Conversation should also be exhausted regarding the criteria for topics to be shared. Members of the board of education should never be surprised about a development that takes place in the school. In fact, they should be the first do know. Neither should they be inundated with information about small and insignificant situations that have little or no impact on the school system’s operations or image. Coming to agreement about what needs to be shared and when is a critical component of the superintendent and board of education relationship. If either side errs, suspicion and doubt will result. That will be damaging to the school system . . . in every way. The tenure of a superintendent can be compared with that of a newly hired head coach in the National Football League. The difference with this comparison is that the new head coach gets to select his assistants and helps set his roster. The new superintendent inherits both the management team and the students who will produce the results leading to decisions about his tenure. With a lot of fanfare and smiles, the new coach dons the hat of the team, embraces the team’s owner, and begins his work. Too often, less than three years later, tensions are reported in the media, pictures show more angst than happiness, and plans are made to transition the coach out of the position. What happened to that happy relationship that was present just a few short years prior to the coach’s departure? Could it be that unrealistic expectations were established from the onset? Perhaps there was a transition in the upper-management team, similar to new board members being elected who have different perceptions of how the school district should be run? Maybe the superintendent and the board of education were not honest with each other regarding their perceptions of their respective roles in the school system. It is critical that an understanding is reached regarding whether the board wants a “mouthpiece” while they manage the system or whether they are really interested in a leader who will use the vision and the values of the school community for the benefit of the system. And, the candidate for the superintendent position must be forthright about his or her feelings with respect to that matter. Leadership does have casualties. How the aftermath of a critical decision is dealt with can have a major impact on superintendent and board of education relations. Those decisions are seldom unanimous. But the disagreement regarding crucial decisions should not impair the relationships of those

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making those decisions. A four to one or three to two vote on a hotly debated choice should be followed with graceful and professional behavior. The emotions of the decision-making process should never be public. Professionalism and gracefulness should always rule the day. This is not easy. At the pinnacle of local policy and management public school decision-making, there will be an emotional reaction. The most efficient school systems are those where that gracefulness and professionalism are pervasive in every aspect of the school system’s operations and personal attacks are so rare people cannot remember the last one. There will always be disagreements. Make no mistake about it. Hopefully, those involved in the decision-making process can remember to dislike a decision absent disliking an individual. Holding a superintendent position in which the incumbent’s values are not aligned with the values of the sitting board of education is always tenuous. In that case, the incumbent has two choices. First, he or she may realign his or her values so they are more in line with those of the board of education. For some people that is very difficult to do. Values are deeply rooted feelings about “the way things are” and are supposed to be. The other choice is to “cut your losses” and move on. This may cause a major disruption to one’s personal life and professional career. However, is it any worse than going to school every day dealing with the tortuous matter of having every decision questioned, every report criticized, and every issue magnified? How one moves on is also very important to your career and to the stability of the school system you are leaving. Having a clear transition plan, determining to not “burn any bridges,” and going public with the “correct” discussion for the move all tell a lot about who you are as a professional and as a person. UNIONS The term association does not accurately explain the behavior of the groups that school employees join. The actions of those groups clearly identify them as unions. Wouldn’t it be great if the state teachers union helped rid the educational community of teachers that we both know should not be teaching? The response to this question from union leadership is predictable and does not indicate a move of support. Always remember that unions must protect their membership to the fullest, at all times. No individual member’s complaint is too small or insignificant to escape the union’s support. That’s what unions do and, to sustain and increase

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their membership, they must follow up on each and every concern each and every time. What may seem, on face value, like a concern with widespread implications, often is a mundane complaint from a single malcontented employee. At one school the only concern that was identified was that the custodian assigned to the bathroom was putting the toilet paper on the rollers backwards. This surfaced as a topic of discussion during an administrative-union meeting. Can you imagine spending seventeen minutes on this topic and how to correct it? Absurd! But it is a natural by-product of the union and administration relationship. At another school, teachers complained that they were not given enough training for emergency drills, despite having been trained in the early fall, being provided an emergency plan, and having practiced the drills. The administrative team planned another training session and reminded teachers of the meeting thrice over a two-week period. When the meeting was held, not a single person showed up. The right to complain should be cloaked in some measure of accountability. Teachers whose job performance is less than desirable often seem to emerge in positions of leadership with the teachers union. Time and again, as their job rating is identified as questionable, their names appear in some formal position with the local union. Could this be happenstance? One individual’s personality was so strong that, after she left the position of president of the local teachers union, she continued to bully its leadership into compliance with her agenda through his retirement. A teacher who used lesson plans that were twenty years old, she boasted that she personally was the reason for the rapid and regular turnover of principals at her high school. Indeed, there were clauses in the teacher contract that were referred to by her name. She was a regular grievance-writer, in one year having five running at the same time! Once there was a bomb scare at the local middle school that caused the administration to move those students to the high school, which rearranged the lunch schedule and, for that day, cost her his planning period! She grieved it. Over a six-year period, she averaged four grievances per year. There were no other grievances ever filed. Truly, this was a corruption of the policy and contract process, a waste of time for those required to participate in it, and a glowing indication of the shortcomings of the union work. Determining through a time-analysis of e-mail communication that she was, in fact, completing some of her union work during time she should have been teaching students, and that she was not following through with directives to improve her teaching (after inspection of five years of professional development attendance records to determine that she was, in fact, present

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for each day of that professional development), an administrator discussed this matter with her. Not long afterwards she elected to retire. This salvaged an otherwise positive culture for the rest of the staff, both administrative and teachers, at the school. Teacher unions are also major players on the political scene, with them being the largest lobbying groups in some states. In Delaware, several teachers serve in positions in the state legislature, often on committees or as committee chairs that have a direct bearing on which legislation is proposed, introduced, or advanced through the legislative process. What kind of legislation do you think is promoted? To ask that question is to answer it. The same is true at the national level. The American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are constant lobbyists on any language that deals with education in our country. Because of their extensive “war chests,” they yield considerable influence on who gets elected and how they attend to the matter of education on a national scale. There are some positive results of union activity; there are pockets of productive relationships between teacher unions and administrators. However, it may be said that the people who really need a union and a contract are the students. Aren’t they the ones we are here to protect, promote, nurture, and educate? Ironically, they are the only group absent such. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE Perhaps no challenge in public education is as confounding to educators as dealing with matters of religion. It was over nine decades ago when the state of Tennessee passed the Butler Act, which outlawed teaching of “any theory that denies the divine creation of man and teaches instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals.” The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend any teacher accused of violating the act, and John Scopes agreed to incriminate himself by teaching evolution. Clarence Darrow headed the defense team and William Jennings Bryan led the prosecution in what has become known as The Monkey Trial. Journalist H. L. Mencken covered the proceedings and reported them to the world. The trial focused an unprecedented amount of public attention on the creationism and evolution controversy but the trial had very little impact on the legal issues involved. Scopes was rapidly convicted and, upon his appeal, the Tennessee Supreme Court affirmed the Butler Act to be constitutional. The court overturned his conviction on a technicality which blocked any chance to take the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. The debate continues.

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Ask any high school principal how he or she feels as spring comes to an end, graduation sits on the horizon, and he or she begins to consider that voluminous legal communication cascading down from every possible avenue. One side says “If you deny prayer at graduation, we will sue you.” The other threatens “If you allow prayer at graduation, we will sue you.” What’s a principal to do? Lawyers have built careers dealing with this matter. There are appropriate protocols which soothe most of the emotions on both sides of this issue; however, the most passionate will never have their feelings satisfied. The debate continues. Textbook selection committees also bemoan this controversy, especially when they are considering the adoption of a new biology book. Should that text mention creationism or the newest philosophy, Intelligent Design? Critics of evolution decry it also as a theory. They demand an answer to the question “Has anyone actually seen or heard a dinosaur?” Supporters of evolution attempt to discount their opposites by using natural occurrences to discount the miracles listed in the bible. The debate continues. If the Separation of Church and State doctrine is so exact, some wonder, how come there can be such an event as a governor’s prayer breakfast, “In God We Trust” printed on our money, and prayers opening up many governmental functions? State boards of education continue to debate this issue; parties on both sides continue to gather evidence pointing to their view as correct, and textbook companies attempt to print materials that lack anything close to being controversial, nearly rendering their works meaningless. The debate continues. While all of these discussions unfold, teachers continue to quiver at the mere mention of religion in schools. Choral directors optimize their creativity and resourcefulness to fulfill their responsibility to have a winter concert without offending anyone. School district human resource staff are careful to develop annual calendars noting the Winter Break and Spring Break, while others marvel at how, each year, those breaks come at the exact same times as Christmas and Easter. The debate continues. Sadly, school administrators and teachers can do little to eliminate the chances that they will end up in court, spending way too much time and resources defending their actions in a war for which they did not enlist. If either side decides to make your school the next battleground, lace on your boots, collect your ammunition, and get to the front lines. There you will be for a long while. Unfortunately, it is the war that never ends. The individual battles will not be noted in a book entitled All Quiet on the Religious Front.

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SCENARIO—GOVERNMENTAL POLITICS Teachers May Flowers and Jim Locker bring two students to the principal’s office for fighting during lunch on Monday. Flowers reports to Principal Eddie Kett that seventh graders Kitty Katt and Sarah Nator were both swinging at each other and pulling hair. She and Locker also agree that when Katt and Nator were asked to stop, neither would. They had to be pulled apart. Kett has Katt and Nator placed in separate offices with the doors open so he can keep an eye on them while they cool down. He thanks Flowers and Locker and waits a couple of minutes before interviewing each student. Before he begins questioning them, he asks the school nurse, Sandy Beach, to check each student for injuries. Beach notes that Katt has a cut lip and Nator has an eye that is beginning to turn black. Beach completes a report on each student and returns to her office. As Kett talks with each student, he hears the same story. Both girls agreed individually that they had been “talking about each other” on Facebook over the weekend. The language escalated to the threat level on Sunday evening with each agreeing to “take care of the other during lunch at school on Monday.” There was no denying that each shared an equal share of the guilt for the fight. Kett reviewed each student’s records and found that Katt had been suspended once before for fighting. The district policy called for a five-day suspension for a fight. Nator had been suspended twice previously, once three days for continued insubordination and the other three days for disrespect. Kett noted that Nator was a student in the special education program and had a ten-day cumulative limit on out-of-school suspensions. He suspended Katt for five days and Nator for three, called their parents, and asked them to come get their daughters. Nator’s mother, Sara, came in first, asked what happened, and asked what happened to the other student involved. Following district protocols, Kett told Nator that he could not talk about the other student with her. She took Sarah and left. One-half hour later, Katt’s father, Tom, came in, asked what happened, and what would be the consequence for the other student. Again, following district protocols, Kett told Katt that he could not talk about the other student with him. He took Kitty and left. Nator returned to school on Friday of the same week, having served her three-day suspension. She returned to classes, was compliant in the classroom, and appeared to enjoy lunch that day with her classmates. Early Monday morning, the fifth day of Katt’s suspension, Kett received a call from her father, who, in a very emotional tone, wanted to know why his daughter received a more lengthy suspension for the same fight. Apparently,

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some of Katt’s friends had alerted her that Sara was in school on Friday. Kett re-emphasized that he could not discuss what had taken place with any other student, and that he could only talk with Katt about his daughter. That did not satisfy Katt’s father, who wanted to know who he could call to “get this taken care of.” Kett gave him the telephone number of Assistant Superintendent Art Klass, who handled disciplinary appeals for the school system. Did Kett follow appropriate protocols? What, if anything, should he now do? SCENARIO—RELATIONSHIP POLITICS Buzz Kut is a second-year high school principal who has been given the charge by his superintendent, Carol Ling, to improve his students’ performance on his state’s high stakes assessments in reading. In late April, he received a letter from tenth-grade English teacher Gerri Mander informing him of her intent to retire. He contacts his district’s supervisor of human resources, June Bugg, who gives him seven folders of applicants on file. These are the possible candidates for Kut to interview. Kut puts together an interview team comprised of two English teachers, Mark Etable and Penny Pincher, one parent, Barb Beacu, and Assistant Principal Ryan Oceros. He joins them in late June to determine the exact needs to be addressed with this opening and they generate an interrogatory designed to glean specific information from the candidates. Before beginning the task of conducting a paper screening of the candidates’ files prior to setting up the interview, Kut reminds his committee about the high level of confidentiality which must be adhered to and the fact that they must search for the very best candidates to promote student gains on the state reading test. They begin work on the paper screening and determine that three candidates, Paul Prince, Jan U. Ary, and Doug Outt, have files that far exceed the other four folders. The folder of a fourth candidate, Stan Doff, who graduated from the local university in June, is hotly debated because, despite the fact that his letters of recommendation are weak and his English-related grades in his undergraduate work are at the average level, he was a graduate from the high school for which they are seeking a candidate and he lives in the school system. Pincher and Beacu want to interview him and Etable and Oceros do not. They look to Kut for further guidance. He tells them he will think about it and reveal his decision when they return the next day to make final preparations for the interviews.

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After the meeting, Kut returns to his office to put the finishing touches on the coming year’s schedule when his telephone rings. It is a board member, Justin Case. Case begins the conversation by asking Kut how his summer is going and transitions into a discussion about the English position which is open at the school. “Did you know my nephew just graduated and is looking for a position?” Case asks. “No, I didn’t,” Kut replies. “His name is Stan . . . Stan Doff.” “I see,” Kut murmurs. “Look, I don’t want you to give him any preferential treatment,” Case continues. “I just wanted you to know that he was looking.” “Fine,” is all Kut can muster. “Well, have a great day.” “Thanks,” Kut’s voice is fading. Kut comes to you for advice about this situation. What do you tell him and why?

Chapter 12

Recommendations

After this lengthy discussion, it is incumbent on the author to offer some suggestions. This is accomplished with an eye to the future, a feeling for the present, and a memory of the past. These are not made in any particular order. In fact, it would be perfect if all were enacted simultaneously and immediately. These ideas are listed under two different headings. The first relates to society as a whole; the second for those individuals either aspiring to or currently in leadership positions. Here goes. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SOCIETY Everyone must agree that education does not stand alone. All kinds of public policy enacted outside the walls of the schoolhouse have a profound impact on what takes place inside. How well, or poorly, our society is doing will most likely be reflected in the work of our children, particularly in a place called school. Further, if our adult population would like us to have a substantial impact on the lives of our children, that population must work with us, not against us. Think of what that means in terms of healthy eating habits, teenage promiscuity, violence, and the like. In fact, it seems like schools are asked to do what society at large finds impossible: integrate schools in segregated communities; reduce sexual activity in the face of contemporary movies, music, and other social networks; increase acts of volunteerism when the incidents of adult volunteerism are diminishing, etc. Finally, on this point, consider the time it takes to deal with the aforementioned matters and more like them and the fact that that time is no longer available for instruction on the diverse and extensive academic needs with which our schools must deal. 189

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When hiring leaders, let them lead. There will be some tension with this, but leaders must be immersed in a culture that lets them do what they do best. And, to help them succeed, allow them to pick the major pieces of their leadership team. This can be disruptive to the existing culture but a necessary part of what could be called the success of transition. If a board of education wants a manager, its members should be clear about that in the position posting. If they want a leader, they must carefully construct the components of the hiring process to pick a leader and establish protocols to provide for leadership to take place. That includes cleaning up the messy parts that are also part of the leadership experience. Accountability must be more than words on paper. People at all levels must be held accountable for their decisions, actions, and behavior when it comes to the success of our students. Presently, beneath the shiny veneer of accountability, the truth is known . . . by everyone involved in the education process. Only superintendents and principals are the likely recipients of the repercussions of success derailed. Teachers, students, and parents must accept their roles and responsibilities if there is to be true reform in education. Paper accountability is just that and, after decades of changing the words on the paper, we have seen no real improvements in what we want for our students. Special education has become the disabling movement for far too many students and the schools in which they learn. They and their parents have come to rely on the labels they receive as “get out of jail” tickets for unruly behavior and poor attendance, and as wild cards for poor academic achievement. The special education system must be transformed to enable students to get the education they need through effort, dedication, and hard work, on their part and on the part of their parents. Educators can no longer be blamed for the poor decisions of parents, held accountable when those parents fail to support the school plans, and be held to a higher standard than those parents. It is easy to father a child but it is more difficult, and important, to be a father to a child. In addition, the educational experiences of the vast majority of students must no longer be held hostage to the inappropriate behavior and poor decision-making of a few students, just because those students are the holders of some label. For too many years, administrators attempting to negotiate their way through the teacher evaluation process have participated in an experience like navigating through a mine field wearing a blindfold. That must change. The process must become more streamlined, it must become less time-consuming, and it must result in the purging of teachers who should not be in our nation’s classrooms. Objectivity, fairness, and competence must rule the day. That can be achieved while removing the unnecessary barriers from the process. If all schools are going to be measured using the same criteria, they must all have access to the same resources. The studies are clear about the impact

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of socio-economic conditions on student achievement. Simply comparing Free and Reduced Meal Students rates with student success rates shows that. True, the ninety-ninety-ninety schools research shows that some places are capable of escaping that alignment. However, the herculean effort required for so doing is not possible in most schools. And, holding the ninety-ninetyninety schools data up to the rest of the institution with a “see; it can be done” mentality does little more than to subtly inject blame into those struggling schools’ psyche as if they weren’t trying enough already. Let’s really do something about the achievement gap rather than simply passing it off as an example of teachers and administrators not caring, not trying, or both. Student achievement, attendance, and behavior trends in middle school and high school are fairly predictable as a function of what is taking place in elementary schools and . . . before those students enter school. It is much easier to keep a student from failing at that level than to attempt to repair a failing student in the middle or high school. What happens to a lot of these children before they are born is also very important. Agreeing that the achievement gap is more about the economic condition of families than ethnicity is important. Releasing those in substandard financial situations from the firm grip of socialistic practices will help. Socialism, in theory, assumes that people will work as hard as they can and take only what they need. Human nature, in practice, shows us people who are likely to try to get as much as they can with as little effort as they may expand. That contrast in theory and practice is an unhealthy algorithm which serves only to demotivate the very population it intends to stimulate, especially students in public schools. Add to that the “I want it now” nature of thinking that our culture has produced, and one can see why students are less likely to be intrigued by what is taking place in their classrooms and unlikely to be interested in committing too many of their resources to meet standards, expectations, and goals thrust upon them by others. Finally, education alone is not a guarantee; it is but one (albeit a major one) component of a life plan aimed toward success. If the poor are surrounded with too many examples of individuals who attended school (but did not fulfill their responsibilities) and are not successful, they are continuously being bombarded by a life perspective that indicates that their future is in the hands of others and they have no control over it or that luck is the major player in how one moves through the seventy-plus years of existence on this earth. It will take an entire society to fix this, not just schools. Is our culture up to the task. History has shown it is much easier to simply blame schools for this shortcoming than to take some real steps to solving the matter. If data is going to have any real meaning, let’s aggregate it in a manner for so doing. Gathering students of different ethnicities (such as African American and Haitian students) into the same cells does neither any good.

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It unfairly labels the improvements of one group and denies the other the benefits of a deep and thorough analysis which may result in appropriate recommendations for improvement. Further, allowing families to decide which disaggregated group they want to belong to is fraught with negative implications for future school reform. This practice will inject an uncontrollable internal validity challenge into the process rendering attempts at possible remedies useless. Making research-based decisions is important. This process must not be reduced to research-based decisions of convenience. Otherwise, those laboring in public schools will question the former and scoff at the latter. The data collected on student and teacher ratios is now clear. The Student Teacher Achievement Ration research out of Tennessee has proven that. Rejecting it because it is too expensive while foisting other reform procedures on educators causes them to question the value of any research. Hold parents accountable for supporting their children through the education process. Is it too difficult to expect that housing or food benefits could be restricted if the parent does not attend to the matter of schooling? Is not feeding the mind just as important as feeding the body? Once parents find out that they will be held accountable, the word will get out and educators will get the parental support they have for far too long been lacking. Have business people contact high school counselors to check on student progress in academics, attendance, and behavior. Tell students this is being done and let people know when students do not get jobs because of their shortcomings in these areas. This will reinforce the fact that what happens in schools is directly related to what happens after school. We will be amazed at the results we see. How do we take politics out of public education? The mere mention of public schools conjures up deep feelings of emotion; schools are values factories, and they cost a lot of money. That makes them ripe for political activity. However, when people use public schools more for political reasons, or to further their own careers, the mission of what we do in our classrooms is lost. It is not about us; it never has been. It is about the students who come to us each and every day with the hope that we will give them something that will make their future better. Let us not ever forget that. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR INDIVIDUALS Say what you mean, mean what you say, and say it without being mean. It is important to be truthful with the individual to whom you are communicating and care about that person as well. Being dishonest or not appearing to care will compromise trust and ruin relationships. In addition, if this relationship

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has implications for school improvement, that goal will most assuredly be compromised. Work two jobs, the job you have and the job you want. This is time-consuming and complicated. However, it will save you from being pigeon-holed in a position for the entire of your career or becoming victimized by the Peter Principle, being promoted to your level of inefficiency. This is crucial for our public schools in that the improvement process cannot be slowed because an individual needs extra time to transition into his or her new position. You must be able to dissect a situation, determine follower readiness level with respect to that situation at that time, and apply the appropriate leadership style. There is a wide range of options, from benevolent to direct, and everything in between, from which you may choose. To be most effective, you must be able to demonstrate each one of them. Using this skill in our schools will make you an attractive candidate for promotions. Never ask anyone to do anything you haven’t or wouldn’t do yourself. Following this guideline can help you sort out your values, consider the entire of the implications of an action, and guard you against directing followers to complete activities that may be harmful to themselves or others. This is why, in partial preparation for school administration, collect as many diverse experiences in the school setting that you can handle. You cannot bend, modify, or alter your ethics for the sake of convenience. People need leaders who are steadfast in their thinking and their behavior. Public education is in desperate need of real leaders, not paper leaders. These individuals may be positional or personal. The zenith of leadership is that individual who has both: the position and the character traits to take people where they have never been, to their future. Develop both your substance and your style. The former deals with the content and processes you must know. The latter deals with how you relate all of this to the people with whom you come into contact. Be graceful at all times. That will serve you well as you work to develop your leadership quotient. SCENARIO Al Gorithm walked from the parking lot to his office as principal of Working Well High School. He is especially pleased this day. The high stakes test scores have come out and, once again, most students at Working Well have met or exceeded the state standards. Not all students have done so but the board of education at Understanding School District knows that is not possible. Board President Pat See has been

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a long-time supporter of instructional practices and assessment that show improvement on the part of students. She and Superintendent Cam Corder support their teachers and administrators because they know their staff is doing everything they can to support and nurture the students of the school system. It is clear to them that, despite this unyielding assistance, some students have liabilities that prevent them from making the anticipated progress. Working with the Understanding School District Teacher Union President Art Form, See and Corder have purged the ranks of those employees who were not passionate about students and making them better in every way. The school system has gained a reputation as one where expectations are high and realistic, and people are held accountable through an objective and fair process. Prospective teachers are also attracted to the school system because of the incredibly positive culture that permeates everything that happens there. This idea is spread by both teachers who work at Understanding School District and candidates who interview there as well as by community members and parents. Form, See, and Corder have worked with their legislators to cut through the myriad of red tape usually associated with providing special education services. As a result, students in the special education program benefit from having more time in direct contact with their teachers who are now freed up from the mountain of paperwork that used to be part of their responsibilities. Stan Bye is the president of the Working Well High School Parent Teacher Association. Bye and Gorithm have a very close relationship, and that spills over into extremely close ties between the students’ parents and the schools’ teachers. Parents know they will be held accountable if they do not tend to the activities of the school, participate in school conferences, and contribute in related committees. The parents have grown to appreciate the fact that their involvement produces results for their children who graduate from the high school ready to pursue a career, enter the armed forces, or gain acceptance to the college of their choice with the support of scholarship money. Teachers appreciate the support they receive from the parents and regularly laud the fact that working together as they do always benefits their students. Gorithm also works very closely with the chairman of the community Chamber of Commerce, Art Store, who is proud of the fact that nearly every business in town is a member of the Chamber. Also, business owners work closely with the high school guidance counselor, Teddy Bear, to help transition students from high school into work in their hometown. The students know that business owners will contact the school to ask about students’ academic work, attendance, and behavior. Since students understand that, they are motivated to improve their standing in each of those areas.

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The high school principal tenses as he remembers how it was when he and Corder arrived at the school system. The school system, which has six elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school, did not have a vision. The culture was deplorable with infighting regularly taking place between both internal and external stakeholders. Results were a disaster, for both staff and students. A key piece of the puzzle was when See was elected to the school board and became president. With no hidden agenda to pursue and the plight of the system’s students as her singular goal, it was apparent that positive change was on the horizon. She and Corder began to make changes, some of which were painful. “A natural part of the process,” Gorithm mused. But, by keeping their eye on the goal and continuously building the process, after several years, the school system turned. “What a place to go to school,” the veteran principal thought with a smile. “My day is filled with opportunities to support staff and students, who are appreciative of my time and the resources I can find for them. And our parents are super. They don’t just raise funds for us; they participate in deep and rich conversations on committees to make our school better. We couldn’t ask for more from our business community.” “Good morning Mr. Gorithm,” said senior Dan Cer as the principal walked down the hall. “Nice to see you today.” The principal returned the greeting, smiled, and continued down the hall. Why can’t all schools and school systems be like Working Well High School and Understanding School District? Going back to Peter Senge’s learning community, “It is created when people work together to create the results they desire, think, and work in truly innovative ways, and are continually learning how to learn together.” Public education is the most regulated, policy-ridden, and contracted institution in our society. Any time someone wants to initiate a process for the good of the students or staff, there is some rule why that cannot be done. Working together, right-minded people create the synergy that instills a positive inertia propelling schools to greatness. We need the leadership to start that process.

Conclusion

I believe most strongly that we are all part of a critical experiment . . . the experiment of living. How well we complete this experiment will determine the very existence of life itself, as we know it. If we succumb to the temptations of activities that sustain pollution, in whatever form; if we are unable to control our thirst for a philosophy of worldwide manifest destiny; if we fail to understand that delicate balance that does exist in nature, for all life forms; if we fail to develop sensitivity and strategies to resolve our individual and collective differences; if we fall short of incorporating these concepts into our experiments in life, then and quite simply, there may be no more life . . . for any of us. I suggest that education is the catalyst through which we may work this experiment (this life) to a successful completion. Through learning, we may understand the importance of a clean environment not just in nature but in all avenues of our existence and interactions. Through learning, we may come to appreciate the beauty and necessity of differences in people. Through learning, we may come to realize that we are not alone on this planet, but share this space and this time with a variety of life forms, some of which we impact and others which critically impact our life form. Education is not simply wisdom. It is also understanding. It is patience. It is caring, for the sake of our children’s children. That is what education is all about. During my more than four decades in public education, I have vacillated in four states: Delaware, Maryland, confusion, and chaos. It is my hope, in retirement, to settle in either the state of calmness or the state of tranquility. For those of you still continuing to toil in or for the many who will soon enter the business of public schooling, I hope this book has been helpful in getting you to think and act in a way that will benefit our students. 197

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After decades of institutional liberalism in public education, in the form of permissive discipline codes for students and staff, lackadaisical accountability protocols for both adults and children, and policy and regulation resulting in attempts to equalize all students, we have created the “Brave New World” in schooling. Do we like what we have crafted? I’ve always felt that it is possible for a writer to create an image with words that no artist can paint with a brush. This has been my goal with this text, to have readers understand public schooling through the mind of someone who has been at work within it for over forty years. If that has been the case for you, my goal has been achieved . . . partially. The second, and equally important, goal is for this reading to have been sufficiently motivating to have you do something, anything, to make the business of schooling better. Think of it as a gift, the gift of motivation. You see education is anything but an exact science. School people regularly grapple with the frustrations of making decisions regarding experiences which will characterize the lives of students through thirteen years in school. They agonize over scheduling choices, the weight a test will carry, and how much homework to give. I can remember one kindergarten teacher reduced to a state of tears because of the incredible responsibility she felt for the communication she was having with first-grade teachers for each of her students. “What I tell them,” she moaned, “may well dictate their educational experiences for the rest of their schooling and will have major impact on the rest of their lives.” I told her she was a hardworking and good-minded teacher and that she would do fine because she had the best interests of her students in mind. While education should be filled with instruction best likened to stimulating, entertaining, and informative experiences, it should likewise be a process which causes the educated to move from one place to another, to stretch, to grow. The lasting goal of those who staff our schools is to have students leave each day with something more than that with which they arrived. That has and will take effort . . . on the part of the school staff, the students, and the students’ parents. To make gifts of grades, assignments . . . of education defeats the purpose of schooling. If one is presented with a gift, that gift is not the possession of the receiver. If the gift is taken away, the receiver is left with nothing. If, however, one works for something and is, as a result of the effort, presented with a gift, the gift, when taken away, leaves not the receiver giftless. He is still the possessor of the fruit of his efforts. That may never be taken away. So it is with education. To motivate people to change their behavior is never easy. They often are confronted with the specter of failure. Failure may be regularly demonstrated

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in each of our lives. It may be the inability to stick to a diet, receiving a non-passing mark on an assignment, or suffering through a broken marriage. The opportunities for defeat seem to wait for us at every turn. Or do they? Could not those same experiences that drive us toward downturns in our emotional makeup also be viewed as opportunities . . . opportunities for personal growth and advancement? To explore the decisions, the behaviors, the attitudes that lead to this inability to find success, takes not a greater vision, only a different perspective. Failure does not exist if, in that setback, a strategy, a philosophy, an approach is discovered which will enable successful goal attainment in the future. To look at situations through eyes unclouded with emotion or bias will lead to new discoveries. To realize that opportunity exists in a risk-filled situation takes only a new outlook. There is no such concept as failure; there are only people who fail.

Appendix

What is truth? Perhaps I should have begun this treatise with that question, explored the similarities and differences between truth and perception, and reminded readers that my perception is my truth. That’s no different from anyone. Bulging from that truth is the dynamic tension between generalities and distinctions, examples of which I have hoped to capture in this writing. Again, they are mine but I hope the readers will consider each, debate some, and act on a few. I write with the pen of a practitioner with some background in research. Often, I have implored doctorate students, when someone exclaims, “The research says . . . ,” to respond, “Show me the research.” There is research . . . and there is research. We talk about how liars figure and figures lie, and I ask them to consider reading the book How to Lie with Statistics written by Darrell Huff in 1954. I tell them I have studied it and will use it as a guide to question the claims they will make in their dissertations. In just 145 pages, Huff guides the reader through every strategy imaginable that people use to convolute their data to sway an opinion their way. It is an excellent read, and I am baffled that not more than one-half million copies have been sold since I can recount the tactics Huff describes being used in countless situations. That is a generalization with distinction, and there is certainly much gifted research that has, I have noted in an earlier chapter, moved the process of education more from an art and closer to a science. It is my hope that efforts in that regard will continue. As for me, I am a disciple of that old catcher Yogi Berra, who stammered, “You can observe a lot by watching.” For me, this is an interesting quote. I have observed a lot by watching; often I have observed the same lot by 201

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watching. But, the meaning I attach to it has changed in the past forty-some years. I’m sure my eyes received the same visual stimulation, so I am left with the fact that my wholelife experience is causing me to have a different interpretation. Were it as simple as to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? The fact that falsehoods cheapen the judicial process does not lessen the fact that, presented with the truth, a dozen jurors will still have a difficult time coming up with a unanimous verdict. At my age, I have chosen to continue to tell the truth . . . as I see it. I will talk with people, pepper the local papers with letters to the editor, and otherwise attempt to influence public education and our way of life to my liking. I’d rather live in my future than one created by someone else. As renowned educational researcher Dr. David Berliner once proclaimed, “Truth telling is a virtue!”

About the Author

James H. VanSciver labored in public education for nearly forty-five years. He has published approximately 130 articles dealing with diverse education topics and made over 130 presentations at state and national conferences and conventions about educational issues. A former state “Superintendent of the Year,” he has also published three children’s books, Close Play at Home, Carnage of a Curveball, and Running on Empty.

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