district superintendents: changing the dialogue on reform

© 2013 K12 Insight

District Superintendents: Changing the Dialogue on Reform

NJASA Vision DevelopmentAtlantic City, New JerseyOctober 23, 2013

© 2013 K12 Insight

Why Is Changing the Dialogue on Reform Needed?

Daniel Yankelovich – Magic of Dialogue American society generally makes acceptable decisions However, American society is woefully ill-informed

Public judgment is based on values and feelings, not knowledge and facts

Decisions are the result of protracted public dialogue Education is a profession that is all about knowledge and facts

© 2013 K12 Insight

Why Is Changing the Dialogue on Reform Needed?

Educators are largely talking to themselves and their supporters and reacting to critics. As a result:

Educators are not invited to participate in the public dialogue More importantly, educators are not missed from the dialogue

because many consider them irrelevant

© 2013 K12 Insight

How Is the Public Dialogue Defining Reform?

The Public’s Values and Feelings:

Charter Schools

-they offer competition that aims to improve public schools-they provide parents with options -they foster innovation because they are free of many restrictions that TPSs face-they can provide exactly what the community needs and wants

The Educators’ Knowledge and Facts:

Charter Schools

-after 20 years of the charter school movement, it’s clear that the debate is at an impasse, and what’s needed is greater understanding of why – not whether – a handful of charters get exceptional results.-If there are any consistent lessons from the charter experiment, at least in terms of test-based effects, they seem to tell us what we already know – that performance can be improved with more resources, more time and more attention. These interventions are not cheap or new, and they’re certainly not “charter-specific” in any way-Those that are oversubscribed are more successful

© 2013 K12 Insight



Grade Retention

- is growing in popularity- Foundation for Excellence in ED

“leave the student back”-Florida, Chicago, Harlem “miracles”-SC Peeler Legislation (2886) -accountability “get tough” attitude-high stakes test based decisions -self-congratulatory war on social promotion


Grade Retention

-Grade retention can be expected to have the same destructive results in 2013 as it did when it was tried ten or twenty or forty years ago-Reading and literacy achievement should be evaluated through holistic, classroom-based mechanisms, not high-stakes testing- There are no “miracles - real improvements at aggregate levels are almost always slow and incremental-This is a policy insuring more non-readers- Reading proficiency is of little value if students are non-readers

© 2013 K12 Insight



Six National Education Goals in 1990 to be achieved by 2000:

All children will start school ready to learn by 2000

By 2000, the high school graduation rate will be 90%

Challenging achievement and citizenship

By 2000, first in the world in math and science achievement

Every adult will be literate by 2000 Every school will be drug- and

violence-free by 2000


Where are We? Not 10, Not 20 but 23 years later :-Best research shows only 48% of poor children ready to learn by age 5 compared to 75% from moderate to high income families-22 years later in 2012 only 78.2% of freshmen graduate in four years (see maps) maybe we might make 90% by 2020-In 2012 US students ranked 25th in math and 17th in science and 14th in reading-21% to 23% of adult Americans were not "able to locate information in text", could not "make low-level inferences using printed materials”

© 2013 K12 Insight

1990

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2012

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Reform is spread across an incredible spectrum of opinionThere is no universal meaning of reform Reform is an interaction of complex values, experiences and opinionsEducation reform continues a failed tradition of honoring messaging or evidenceNeither claims about failures nor solutions for reform policy today are supported by large bodies of compelling research.

The Public is defining reform by its values and feelings through protracted dialogue that does include or involve educators and we need to insert ourselves!

© 2013 K12 Insight

YOUR SUCCESS IS NOT SELF-EVIDENT!

© 2013 K12 Insight

“The Future Isn‘t What It Used To Be” How Will We Insert Ourselves and Drive the Dialogue?

??????????????s The person who controls the agenda is not the speaker but the questioner Critics question and time is spent rephrasing questions to reflect our reality;

hence, defensive posture We need to raise the questions

Culture Changing the way we learn is a cultural identity battle American culture resists reform because to accept an array of change strikes

too close to the comfort zone Gallop Poll PTA Katz 194 to 16 “Halftime in America”

© 2013 K12 Insight

Experienced Superintendents Driving Reform“The Future Isn‘t What It Used To Be”

Culture In a New York Times editorial, “It’s Still Halftime in America,”

Tom Friedman said, “The America that launched Armstrong [Neil] was an America that was embarked on a great and inspiring journey — one that spawned breakthroughs in science, medicine, computing and physics that made our country, and the world, a better place.”

“If only this election were a choice, not between two parties or two candidates, but between two exceptional journeys — with maps included.”

© 2013 K12 Insight

Experienced Superintendents Driving the Future“The Future Isn‘t What It Used To Be”

Culture What will an American look like in 2050?

The nation’s population will rise to 438 million in 2050, from 296 million in 2005, and fully 82% of the growth during this period will be due to immigrants arriving from 2005 to 2050 and their descendants.

Projections indicate that nearly one in five Americans (19%) will be foreign born in 2050, well above the 2005 level of 12%, and also surpassing the historic peaks for immigrants as a share of the U.S. population — 14.8% in 1890 and 14.7% in 1910.

© 2013 K12 Insight

Who Will Lead? Dr. Pangloss or Pogo?

Dr.Pangloss, Candide’s tutor and mentor, teaches that in the best of all possible worlds, everything happens out of absolute necessity and that everything happens for the best. Pogo, Walt Kelly’s comic strip possum, commented on our myriad of pollutions — public, private and political — saying, “We have met the enemy and he is us.”

© 2013 K12 Insight

Why Pogo? And Why Experienced Superintendents?

Few Lead – Many FollowYou have a clear understanding of real issuesYou can define and frame challengesYou identify and marshal resourcesYou make changes that are sustainableYou recognize those critical moments that draw on your experienceYou avoid being consumed by the discourse of powerlessnessYou have discerned how to incubate new ideasYou have mastered the skill of circulating testimony in public spheresYou know how to fashion actionable items

© 2013 K12 Insight

How Will Reform Be Sustained?

Michael Fullen argued almost 15 years ago that internal school development cannot be sustained or brought to a wider scale without an inside/outside reciprocity that fuses three powerful forces:

1. The purpose/meaning of reform2. Political capacity to overcome obstacles3. Good ideas in the marketplace

© 2013 K12 Insight

How Will You Be the Sustaining Agent?

-Develop a counterintuitive mindset of “moving toward the danger.”

-Effective leaders with a vision and willingness to drive the future will interact with the plethora of outside forces impinging on them.

Because they realize that: The external context has changed dramatically

Walls of the school have become more permeable and transparent

New environment is complex, turbulent, contradictory, relentless, uncertain and unpredictable

Increased demands for better performance and increased accountability

“Out there” has now moved “In here”

© 2013 K12 Insight

How Will You Be the Sustaining Agent?

Five powerful external forces you must contend with and turn to your advantage:

1. Parents and community2. Technology3. Corporate connections4. Government policy5. The wider teaching profession

YOU HAVE THE VISION ! – My Story

© 2013 K12 Insight

“ Simply by being compelled to keep constantly on his guard a man may grow so weak as to be unable any longer to defend himself”

Nietzsche

© 2013 K12 Insight

Next Steps

• Consider:– Draft your own Vision for New Jersey?– Promote its adoption?

• Framing New Conversations for New Jersey– What are the possibilities?– Who should be involved?– Do you need sponsors?– Who/how will it be designed?– Shall we set up a task force?

• To what shall we commit? – Is there a moral imperative to act?

© 2013 K12 Insight

Be a Daydreamer and Change the Dialogue on Reform

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”- T.E. Lawrence

© 2013 K12 Insight

Thank you for the time you gave today and the time you give our children every day

My special thanks to NJASA

district superintendents: changing the dialogue on reform

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