MUSD Leaders Blog

Mr. P’s Blog: Former Tucson, AZ Principal on Capitol Hill

We’ve heard from Jamie Vollmer.  Now sit down, hold on, and press play.

If you have not read the famous report from the National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk, it is worth your time to catch up some US education history. The roots of current school reform efforts in the substance of NCLB are found in that report from 1983.

I bring up A Nation at Risk because several new national reports came out recently. These reports deserve some response from educators because they bring ideas to the nation’s attention on how schools should change in the coming years. We have to be part of these conversations at the local, state, and national levels in order to be at the forefront of change in our schools.

Here are the reports:

From the National Center on Education and the Economy: Tough Choices or Tough Times.
(This is the executive summary of the report. The full report must be purchased.)

From the Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force: A New Day for Learning.

From ASCD and the Whole Child Commission: The Learning Compact Redefined: A Call to Action.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas after reading some of this information.

Steve

As school leaders, I think we need to continue our efforts to reach out to, and connect with, other school leaders. The relationships you build with other school leaders can be mutually supporting, enriching, and encouraging. I think veteran administrators call it that necessary network of support. I hope that you are building bridges with other school leaders and developing strong relationships that will a vital part of your work. With that purpose in mind, there is a new blog from school leaders all over the country.

The new blog is called Leader Talk and is at: http://www.leadertalk.org/

A different school leader will be blogging there daily. To date the group includes: 6 superintendents, 22 principals, 7 educational leadership professors, and 10 other central office / leadership folks. It should be a great place for learning and connecting with others. I will blog there once a month as well as continue to blog at http://mr-ps-blog.blogspot.com/

Visit Leader Talk today to see who is blogging there, connect to their blogs, and you can sign up to receive the posts as they go online. Let me know what you think of the new site.
Enjoy!

Steve

Much has been written about educating children in the 21st century. I am one that believes that our future as a nation depends on our success in making this transition. While I have witnessed some wonderful examples of educating students for this millennium, sadly, I also believe that this has been a process that has been far too slow in developing. It is now 2007 and we are well into what we once viewed as a future that we could only dream about. A number of years ago, I read a book by Gary Marx called Ten Trends, Educating Children for a Profoundly Different Future. I picked it up today and thought about how this book had changed my way of thinking and my own leadership philosophy. The 10 trends that Gary Marx discusses are as follows:

1. For the first time in history the old will out number the young. This is a result of life expectancy going up and death rates going down. The U.S. Census estimates that the number of Americans age 65 and older will increase 230% between 2000 and 2050. This is important for many reasons but especially from the solvency of our pension programs to the competition of resources between those who are older and those who are younger.

2. We have a new look. Our country is becoming ever diverse and our traditional minority populations will become the majority within 50 years. Combine that with the decrease in minority educators and the diversity gap is widening between teachers and their students. Debate will rage on regarding immigration policy, other public policy issues will command increasing attention and achieving political consensus will be increasingly more difficult.

3. Social and intellectual capital will become the primary economic values in society. We are in the midst of the transition from the industrial age to a global knowledge/information age. The control of knowledge will be what drives a nations wealth. Possessing the skills to problem solve for our current challenges and those that we can predict for the future will be  key to economic and social success.

4. Education will shift from averages to individuals. Standardization to personalization. Indeed if we aren’t well on our way to this shift right now we haven’t been doing our jobs. While not a bad thing, the standards movement will need to adjust to growing challenges and need to be fluid enough to change mid stream. High stakes graduation tests will lead to more competition for resources, many times, which go to those best able to access these resources, some more adept at getting these resources than others. Read Kozol’s Shame of a Nation or Savage Inequalities for some really thought provoking writing on this subject.

5. The millennial generation will insist on solutions to accumulated problems. In fact, their very survival may depend on it. We must educate our children to solve problems, resolve conflicts, accept challenges as normal and develop the ability to access and utilize knowledge to solve problems and think futuristically.

6. Continuous improvement and collaboration will replace quick fixes and defense of the status quo. Our superintendent just put it best the other day when he spoke about not just thinking outside the box but living outside the box. Those of us in MUSD are very familiar with the Continuous Improvement Model and Aligned Management System from the Partnership for  Excellence based on Demings model. The book discusses unmet demands for improvement equal a market niche or as Mr. Dearden often says, if we don’t do it, someone else will.

7. Technology will icnrease the speed of communication and teh pace of advancement or decline. Our schools must be poised for the future and this means more than just computers. There is a great table on page 55 of Mr. Marx’s book which provides charactaristics of 21st century ready schools.

8. Knowledge creation and breakthrough thinking will stir a new era of enlightenment. We must move from information acquisition to knowledge creation by building intellectual entrepreneurs. While the problems that our kids will face will be enormous, this millennium could very well become a new era of enlightenment. Again, in Marana we have spent time reading and discussing Good to Great by Jim Collins. Think back at the point at which breakthrough occurs. If you don’t remember, it is hanging on the wall of Foster Center!

9. Scientific discoveries and societal realities will force difficult ethical decisions. Knowing this, should education and ethics go hand in hand? Do we model the ethical decision making skills that will be so vital for our children. Do we utilize power the right way. “Power is given to you by others. It is not yours: it is in trust with you and it is a great responsibility. Power is to be used for the benefit of those whose trustee you are.”  This is a quote by Kershavan Nair.

10. Competitionwill increase as professions intensify their efforts to attract and keep talented people. Are we preparing our students to succeed or fail in the 21st century. Will be be viewed as a generation of 20th century teachers, teaching in the 21st century or will we be viewed by history as a generation wise enough to prepare our students for the future.

This is literally a fraction of what Gary Marx discusses in his book and I have deliberately not gone into a whole lot of answers because I think the real power is in developing many of the answers together. I have interspersed some of my own thoughts randomly throughout but 99% is right out of Mr. Marx’s book which is available for me to loan to you or I can provide you with ordering information. I would be interested in any thoughts that you have and would love to develop an group interested in meeting and discussing these these 10 Trends in much greater detail. Thoughts?

As we all know, true leaders have the ability to work within the organizational community to achieve a common vision, mission and goals which in our case, is vital to student success. We have all been challenged by this as we begin the implementation of the “Roadmap to Renewed Excellence.” In fact, successful implementation is vital to our ultimate success as a school district. We all know that we cannot lead alone. Great leaders are able to work within team structures to achieve organizational success. Sometimes however, we do not take enough time to analyze the structure of our teams in order to maximize the group’s ability to get the job done. I have read some really usable information researched and written by Glenn Parker called Team Players and Teamwork and the accompanying Parker Team Player Survey. It is similar to True Colors in that it identifies people’s strengths in the team process which has some obvious implications when we are setting up our teams. I have outlined the following information for you from the work of Glenn Parker.

• To be an effective leader you have to be an effective team player.
• Team leadership requires the articulation of a vision, the creation of a clear mission, and the development of goals and action plans.
• Leaders ensure the completion of immediate tasks in a high-quality and timely fashion and inspire the production of quality results and excellent customer service.
• They have the ability to communicate with all team members and those important players outside of the team.
• They create an open environment in which members feel free to express their views with candor and integrity.
• They are challengers of the status quo and supportive of others who push for risk taking and innovation.
• A team player can be either a leader or a follower and in fact, we often play both roles within a single day.
• Your style remains consistent however it may manifest itself in different ways depending on your role.
• Most people fall into one of four categories as they work in teams. The role may change but most a person’s style usually remains the same.
• These four roles are:
  • Contributor – Depended on to present accurate data in support of the teams’ efforts and as leaders, they generally structure the team to solve technical problems.
  • Collaborators – Tend to be strategic thinkers and do what is required of them to keep the team moving forward.
  • Communicators - Noted for their participatory management approach and encourage and support the involvement of others.
  • Challengers – Raise questions about team issues and establish the norm of candor and openness.

As you can see, there is no right or wrong to these styles just as there is no right or wrong for those of us who went to True Colors many years ago. The key learning point here is that as we establish teams to move our schools or departments forward, it is important in most cases to establish teams that are balanced in team player styles unless the particular task calls for an overload of a specific style. I know that as a principal, I was often more focused on getting the task done than analyzing the make up of the team which could increase team effectiveness. Lastly, Parker offers some techniques in utilizing the information from the Team Player Survey.

• Affirm your strengths – Look for ways to add to your strengths.
• Look to contribute to teams in which your strengths are appreciated and valued.
• Extend your repertoire by incorporating more of the strengths of other styles.
• Develop the ability to analyze your team.
• Be aware of your tendency to become an ineffective team player by using your strengths to excess.

This is just a very brief overview of the Team Player Research done by Glenn Parker. I have one of his books as well as the Team Player Survey if you would like additional information. I hope that this helps at least a few of you in fulfillment of your organizational mission.

Rocky

A few blogging resources you might find interesting:

On the sidebar is the blogroll for this blog. The blogroll is a list of blogs that you may find interesting. They are all related to educational leadership or technology in education. If you read them regularly, you will find great information such as Cool Cat Teacher’s favorite websites. Browse through them and you will see some great new resources.

One of the resources she writes about is Bloglines. It is one of my personal favorites that changed the way I find and read information on the internet. If you don’t have an account, sign up for one and put in the links for this blog and the blogs on our blogroll to get started. I highly recommend this service, or one of the many similar services, because you can simply sign in to your bloglines account to see if the blogs and websites you follow have posted any new information. That way, you won’t have to keep checking blogs and news websites for new information. Also, you can get to your bloglines account from anywhere you have access to the internet.

That’s all for now. Let me know if you have any questions or need help with bloglines. If you try it, you will love it!

Lead On,

Steve

In a recent conversation that I had with Judy Phillips from the Partnership for Excellence, she referred me back to the High Performance Model and the Aligned Management System. While I understood these models at the time of our strategic planning meetings last year and have informally referenced them in my strategic plan work, it was really valuable for me to go back and look at them once again. With specific questions in mind regarding the goals of the new aspiring leadership program, I found that reviewing the High Performance Model was vital in my ability to align this program to other programs and initiatives within the school district. I’m not sure that these two models had great meaning to me until I was able to apply them to the implementation of a specific set of goals. With your meetings coming up with Judy next week, I thought it might be helpful to refresh your memories on the High Performance Model:

Remember that the model is based on the 4 interconnecting circles.

1. Leaders at all levels - vision and mission, district, school, classroom leadership

2. Core Values - Embedded beliefs and behaviors, best practices.

3. Customer focus - Who are the primary and secondery customers that we serve and what are the expecations and needs of our customers.

4. Systems thinking - How are decision made, strategic planning

Remember that High Performance is the interconnection between core values, leaders at all levels, customer focus, and systems thinking. Within systems thinking is the Aligned Management System which is really the basis for the key areas of our strategic plans.  

Looking at the Aligned Management System House,  its very foundation is built on our core values. While I know that this is review information for most of us, I thought that there was some value in looking at these two models again so that we clearly understand how and why we are all striving to have all of our arrows align. Any thoughts?

If you are like I was as a principal, I realized that instructional leadership was my most important role but one in which many days, I spent the least amount of time on. For that reason, I think that it is vital to understand what research really says about leadership and student achievement so that it will become easier for us to focus on some specific structural needs of our school as well as specific instructional methodology which are identified in research to be most effective. In a study by the National Governors Conference in 2003, Richard Elmore states that:

“knowing the right thing to do is the central problem of school improvement. Holding schools accountable for their performance depends on having people in the schools with the knowledge, skill and judgment to make improvements that will increase student performance.” 

It is not a matter of teachers and principals not working hard enough. As Elmore points out, it is not a problem getting people to work hard. The key is getting people to do the right work. To that end, I’d like to remind you of Marzano, Waters and McNulty’s meta-analysis of 30 years of research on the subject of School Leadership that Works. 

I’m working on the topic of school culture for our aspiring leaders program and ran across some good information from the University of California - Santa Cruz on Culturally Proficient Schools. It outlines 5 elements of “Cultural Proficiency” and suggestions for teachers, site administrators, district administration, parents and communiy and school board members. I will quickly run through the elements and corresponding “site administation responsiblities in reinforcing each element:

1. Value Diversity - The site adminstrator needs to be able to articulate a culturally proficient vision for the site.

2. Assess the culture - The school administrator has to be willing to openly and honestly assess the culture of the site without their own personal bias entering into the assessment of school culture.

3. Manage the Dynamics of Difference - The site administrator must provide training and support systems for conflict resolution. (another great example of the necessity for having the correct “systems” in place.

4. Institutionalize Cultural Knowledge - Model and monitor school wide and classroom perspectives. I interpret this as asking the question: does the principal walk his or her talk. Do they model a culture of shared leadership and collaboration where all perspectives are considered. You have heard me say this before but a principal can delegate a lot of things but the culture of a school is ultimately the resonsibility of the school administrator.

5. Adapt to diversity - Assess and change current practices where appropriate. I would add to this that the key here is to insure that you organization has the “systems” to adapt to an ever changing, diverse population. Can your school or department adapt to change while staying true to the core values of the organization? Is the mission inclusive of this process? Has the misstion and vision been reviewed for alignment in relation to what might be a more diverse population? Can you even describe the core values of your school and how diversity and diverse thinking and discord are used as avenues for change versus looked upon as problems?  Just some questions to ponder.

 School culture is perhaps my very favorite leadership topic and one is which I will share more in the future. Once again, I’d love to hear ideas and thoughts about these 5 elements or any other information that people have on the importance of culture in building successful schools.

 Rocky