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In response to the post, “Who are We Letting In – Part 3,” an early LYS leader writes:
SC, I don’t know who the writer was, but Great Post! Possibly, the best one yet.
If you don’t count the ones that I send in.
SC Response
I almost completely agree with you. I’ll tell you this, I’ll blind draw an LYS’er over any other educator in the country and 99 times out of 100 the LYS’er will be the hands down best pick.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
In response to the post, “Sustainability,” a LYS Principal writes:
Sean, you are spot on with this post. We can expand on your ideas by discussing the difference between school turn-around and school improvement. While at a recent Education Service Center training, the presenters correctly pointed out there is a difference. Yet they failed to differentiate between the two. I will.
School turn-around means immediate steps to drastically improve your school, today. As Cain points out, in a turn-around situation you have to get from point A to point B, quickly. If you are in a turnaround scenario, technically there is nothing wrong with implementing improvement scenario ideas. EXCEPT, any time, resources, and effort you put into improvement ideas will necessarily take away from the time, resources, and effort you must put into your turn-around process. After all, time, resources, and effort are a zero sum game.
Looking at individual student data is a great idea to improve your school. Once 70% of your students are meeting standards, it is time to focus on improvement ideas. Before 70% of your students are meeting standards, you have systemic instructional issues that must be addressed in a turn-around scenario. BTW, if less than 40% of your students are meeting standards (in any given sub-pop), you very likely have a systemic curriculum problem.
Professional Learning Communities are a fantastic idea for improving schools. However, focusing too much time on PLC's in a turn-around situation is probably a bad idea. Instead, a steady focus on targeted professional development is a better choice in a turnaround scenario.
Know (or quickly learn) your school and its needs. Adjust all of your strategies and tactics based on the knowledge. And for the record, based on my recent experiences with Education Service Centers, they are not the ones to rely on if you find yourself in a turn-around scenario. Your best bet is to seek help from Lead Your School.
Disclaimer: I am NOT an employee in any shape, form or fashion of LYS. I am and have been a consumer of their services.
SC Response
So I am working through your comment, mentally checking of the paragraphs: I agree, agree, and agree. Then I get to the PLC paragraph. You hedged your bet. In a turn-around situation (an emergency and crisis leadership environment) the focus on PLC’s is a waste of time and energy. And this is coming from a “PLC Guy.” Instead, focus all your energy and resources on the following:
1. Take control of the school. If it looks like a slum or a junkyard, clean it up and haul out the trash (this includes classrooms). If the kids and staff act as if the campus is a zoo, publicly state your discipline expectations (keep it a short, concrete list). Then immediately and continuously monitor and enforce those expectations.
2. Fix the mission critical components of the system. I’ll give you a hint; you need to start with the Foundation Trinity.
3. Improve the adults. This means that adults will teach the scope and sequence, they will work to better implement best practice, they will treat students with respect, and they meet the basic requirements of our profession. This is tough, because each teacher believes that they are not the problem, it is everybody else. Just remember two things:
A. If school turn-around’s were easy, anybody could do it. They can’t.
B. Good teachers believe that they have to keep learning because they just don’t know enough to truly be effective. Bad teachers believe that they are completely effective and there is nothing left for them to learn. This isn’t just my opinion; it is fact, supported by research. Listen to your teachers, without realizing it, they will quickly self-identify the group to which they belong.
4. Work to maximize student performance, in short time windows. This means work everyday to get better, in three weeks sprints.
5. Repeat steps 2, 3, and 4 at ever increasing speed.
Finally, understand that in a true turn-around situation, almost nothing works. So your fixes actually reveal more problems (ISS, credit recovery, tutoring, tardy sweeps, etc.). This makes it seems like things are getting worse in the short run. Which is why a turn-around is a race, can you get results faster than the nay-bobs can mount an effective counter offensive. In this race the stakes can’t be any higher: you win = kids wins; nay-bobs win = kids lose.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
In response to the post, “I Got a Royal Flush – Part 5,” a reader writes:
SC Response
Time to defend the teacher mindset (just a little).
1. Teachers do all the heavy lifting in education. They are the ones with 20+ students in their class all day, every day. It is only natural that many look to reduce their workload and minimize their labor.
2. Teachers don’t have as many opportunities to see the big picture (remember: 4 walls, 20+ students, 6 to 8 hours a day). When you don’t get to see the big picture or the ultimate product of your work (graduation, successful career, etc.), “what’s in it for me” does become part of the equation.
3. Most system changes are presented as being done “to” teachers (and in many cases this actually is the case), instead of being done “for” teachers. I will give you the perfect example of this. Take the common scope and sequence. This is a foundation tool for teacher success. The provision of this tool is a leadership responsibility. To not provide one is a failure of leadership (can I make this any clearer). However, time and time again, when leadership is forced to address this system failure and provide this tool, it is done almost as a punishment. Instead of saying, “Teachers, we apologize for not providing this to you sooner. Now let’s work together to speed up the implementation curve.” The message is, “Teachers, if you had been doing a better job, I wouldn’t have to make you use this.”
The effect of these three realities of the teachers’ world highlights the importance of true leadership. Leadership has to communicate a compelling mission for the organization. Leadership has to provide teachers with regular evidence on the organization’s progress in fulfilling that mission. Leadership has to provide on-going and timely training, support and problem solving for those doing the actual work of the organization. And, leadership has to quickly identify, remediate, or remove those who are not shouldering their fair share of the workload.
Absent all of that, who can blame all but the most saintly from sometimes asking, “What’s in it for me?”
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
In response to the post, “Comments from LYS Trainings, Camps and Presentations,” an old school LYS Principal writes:
As a principal of now multiple LYS schools, I have to comment on "buzz words." We all hear them, everyone uses them, very few know what they mean, and even fewer implement the ideas. I was talking to an Education Support Center (ESC) curriculum "expert" a few weeks ago. He used all the right language, gave a great presentation, but upon closer questioning it became apparent the "expert" we were receiving training from had some serious misconceptions concerning rigor.
In our ongoing discussion it became clear that the "expert" had only a cursory knowledge of instructional issues and a poor understanding of Bloom's Taxonomy. I then spoke with a principal in the training session who from a large, middle class, mostly white, suburban school district. She certainly spoke the language and I was impressed, until I found out her school missed recognized (even with TPM) by just a couple of points.
Seriously? LYS principals have taken EXTREMELY low SES urban schools in the middle of gangland to recognized with TPM. TPM is the ultimate wildcard, if it is not helping you, what are you doing? Because it obviously is not aligned instruction. It is the knowing/doing gap, and that is what we strive to close as LYS leaders. We walk it like we talk it. As I have built my resume cleaning up the messes left by others, I see that is a rare quality. Welcome to what education can be Alice, enjoy the ride down the rabbit hole.
SC Response
As always, I wish I could contradict what you present, but we both have cleaned up too many messes. What makes you want to scream is the fact that the problems we face in education are solvable. Solvable, if we would simply do three things.
1. Quit shooting ourselves in the foot, reloading and shooting again.
2. Recognize that the fundamental practices of creating a self-sustaining learning organization are not difficult, but they are fundamental. Ignore them and everything else you do is an empty exercise.
3. Work hard, with purpose, reflection and passion.
And there is the rub; purposeful change, fundamental practice and hard work isn’t a program that you can just plug “those” kids into, so it isn’t a viable solution for anybody other that the special breed of teachers and leaders that make up the LYS Nation.
Think. Work. Achieve.
Your turn...
