Top LYS Tweets from the Week of May 15, 2011

I’ve had a number of people ask me what I mean when I use the term “Bootleg Technology.” When I use the term, I am talking about hardware (usually portable) that increases connectivity to others and/or the internet. These devices include, but are not limited to, cell phones and smart phones, laptop computers, tablets (Ex: I-PAD), e-readers (Ex: Kindle) and many gaming devices. The beauty of these devices is that ownership of one or more of these items is now more common than not having one. And from a school standpoint, student ownership and/or availability is increasing daily. Whether we want them to or not, students across the economic spectrum use bootleg technology like adults use electricity. We can either embrace and leverage this, or we can ignore it and become less relevant with each passing day. You know which side I’m on.

A number of you in the LYS Nation are now using bootleg technology devices to follow Twitter. If you haven’t done so yet, we want you to join us. To let you see what you are missing, here are the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of May 15, 2011, as tabulated by the accountants at Price Waterhouse.

1. Congratulations to LYS district Splendora ISD - Winner of this year's HEB Excellence in Education Award!!!

2. Tonite's Run Thought: The leadership skills of resourcefulness & resiliency are only honed in the face of adversity.

3. Resist the temptation to look at your budget only in terms of jobs. Cutting support to the bone simply kills the staff that remain.

4. Tonite's Run Thought: How is this for sad? I spent more on Doggy Day Care last year than I did on school taxes.

5. The problem with using test scores as part of teacher evaluation is that the more at risk the student being taught, the more the teacher is at risk.

6. My summary on class size: With poor instruction, more students in a class equals more discipline problems. With good instruction, more students in a class equals less meaningful interaction.

7. Interesting field data: At one LYS campus, the ten teachers with the highest failure rates spent less time in the Power Zone and used more worksheets than their peers.

8. Reason number 589 why the LYS Nation is different. "Fact that schools are safer when teachers are visible surprises districts." Unbelievable.

9. Tonite's run thought: Frequent observation and conversation are the currency of the instructional leader. If you don't, then you aren't.

10. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, what is outright theft?

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

Now Available on Amazon.com! "The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction" http://tinyurl.com/4ydqd4t

Follow Sean Cain on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation

Upcoming Event / Presentation Schedule

June 11 (TASB) - The Fundamental Five; Improve Now!

June 15 (TASSP) - Improve Now!

June 16 (TASSP) - Conference Breakfast, hosted by E. Don Brown (LYS travel tumblers for the first 1000 attendees, last year we ran out)

June 16 (TASSP) – Book Release Event, “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction”

June 16 (TASSP) - Fundamental Five; Tech Tools for the 2.0 Principal

June 17 (TASSP) - PowerWalks

June 18 (TASB) - The Fundamental Five; Improve Now!

Reflections on Phoenix

Another NASSP Conference in the books. Attendance was a little lighter than I expected, but budgets are tight. Overall, I thought the presentations were of exceptional quality and of course, any time you get a group of school leaders together, the conversations were lively. Here are some of my reflections and observations, in no particular order.

1. Downtown Phoenix is clean and easy to get around.

2. The sunrises in Phoenix are breathtaking.

3. I’m disappointed with the on-going hatred for NCLB. It’s not perfect, but holding ourselves accountable for educating our students is good for our profession and good for our students. What I like to ask the opponents of NCLB is this, “Have you already pre-selected the children who you are going to leave behind?”

4. I think that one of the central messages of NASSP’s executive leadership is misguided. If you listen to Tirozzi, you would think that this is the absolute worst time to be a principal. I vehemently disagree. This is the best time ever to be a principal. The tools, practices and research that are available to us now are opening up undiscovered areas of teaching and learning on a daily basis. The fact that we now know when we aren’t effectively reaching our students actually speeds up our innovation curves. If that doesn’t excite you, quit griping and just retire.

5. Next time you are in Phoenix, make a special trip to Donavan’s Steaks and Chops. It is ranked in the top ten steak houses in the U.S. and the ranking is deserved.

6. The shortest conversation Don and I had with a principal was probably the most honest. She came looking for us because she had heard we had a great “program” for her students. She quickly pointed out and she and her teachers were all top notch and were doing a good job. It was her students that weren’t performing. We told her that we work under the philosophical premise that adult practice drives student performance. We then told her we don’t have a “program,” we coach adults in more effective practices. She looked at the two of us for a second and said, “I don’t want to work that hard.” Then she turned on her heels and left.

7. The LYS “Talk Like a Genius” cards are a huge hit.

8. My favorite conversation was with a teacher who was attending the conference for the first time. She said, “What I find most shocking is that all these principals actually go to the sessions. At the teacher conferences there are more people in the hallways than in the rooms.”

9. A quick shout out to our friends in Splendora ISD, Pflugerville ISD, and Cypress-Fairbanks ISD who found us at the conference. And a quick hello to all the new subscribers to the LYS Blog. Give it three weeks and it will all start to make sense.

Finally, if you didn’t attend the conference this year, start making plans for next year, now. The conference will be held in San Francisco next February and LYS will be on the front row.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

TASB and AASA Presentations Update

It seems that the education world just can’t get enough of the LYS Nation.

First, on Thursday, over 100 school board members overcame bad weather to hear how the LYS schools have learned to eat the perceived pain of change for breakfast. Look out non-LYS districts, because your board members left the presentation embracing the Moral Imperative to Change and are fully aware of the danger of relying on false positives to assess system performance. It’s hard to be cynical about schools when there are board members like this audience who are out there working their tails off to lead more effectively and efficiently.

Then on Friday and Saturday at AASA, weather was an issue. There were over 700 participant cancellations due to the inclement weather on the East Coast. But we still had a room of interested Superintendents who came to hear how the hard work and disciplined action of motivated educators has produced significant performance gains in the LYS schools in Splendora ISD, Grand Prairie ISD and Cypress Fairbanks ISD. LYS Nation, your story seems like a fairy tale to most schools and their staffs. What was also nice was that the old school Harris County crew was well represented and that Dr. Paige, Dr. Guthrie, Dr. Folkes, Mr. Berry, and Dr. Merrill are still sought out by their peers across the county.

Finally, I’ll close with a little blatant (but unexpected) self-promotion. If it is true that you are known by the company you keep, then Malcolm Gladwell might be slipping a bit. You can find, "Jump Start Your School," on Amazon.com

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

Congratulations Splendora ISD

The awards and recognition just keeps coming in for the little district that could. The Splendora ISD School Board was just named School Board of the Year for their region. It just goes to show you what a lot of hard work and a little Lead Your School will get you.

Think. Work. Achieve

Your turn...

The Places I Have Been

Let me first apologize for not keeping up with my posting duties. The past five days have been a whirlwind. In five days, I have conducted 9 presentations to over 1,100 school leaders in 3 different cities. And in each case the audiences were larger and more enthusiastic then ever before. Even the school board members were fired up to hear that dramatic and rapid school improvement is possible if you have the vision, desire and discipline.

Starting with the next post, we’ll continue the discussion on fear. I may have stopped writing for a couple of days, but you, the Lead Your School reader have not. So we will get caught up this week.

I want to thank all the Lead Your School readers who came up and said “hello” on this mini-speaking tour. One of the many highlights of the week was when I got to introduce Howard the blog participant to Mike the blog participant.

I want to thank Dr. Mike Laird, who came to my first presentation as a coach, to stand in my blind spot and give me some feedback on how to improve the presentations. And then quickly became an usher and finally a co-presenter as the audiences kept growing.

I want to thank Don Brown and Sherilynn Cotton who presented with me in Austin.

I want to thank Dr. Tommy Price and the Splendora ISD School Board. The opportunity to share with over 200 school board members the story of the ongoing “Splendora Miracle,” is just a small way to acknowledge their hard work and perseverance.

But most importantly, I want to thank the audiences at the Rigor, Relevance and Relationship Conference, hosted by Cypress-Fairbanks ISD. Your passion for knowledge is unrivaled and your focus on students unequalled. And for one of the few times in my life, I was speechless. I have included some pictures. For those of you who weren’t there, after all the chairs were taken, people brought their own chair from other sessions. After no more chairs could be squeezed in the room, people stood against the wall and sat on the floor. And finally, after every square inch of floor space was occupied, people stood and sat in the hall.

Again, thank you.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...