The Alignment of PowerWalks and T-TESS

To conclude this series of T-TESS alignment posts, we’ll discuss formative walks-thru’s.  Principals are beginning to realize that the T-TESS implemented correctly means coaching and supporting staff to better implement better and best practice.  And to do this effectively, a tool that creates “game-film” for teachers is no longer a want... it is a necessity.  And any formative assessment tool that is not aligned to T-TESS, is now essentially a waste of time.  So where to find a formative assessment tool that creates game film for teachers and is aligned to T-TESS?  It’s a short list and at the top of the list is PowerWalks.  The chart below shows the alignment of the individual PowerWalks observation modules and the individual components of T-TESS    

PowerWalks and T-TESS

Module 8 is a customization feature that allows for campus specific observation elements.  Those elements may or may not align to T-TESS specifications.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

The Alignment of The Fundamental 5 and T-TESS

There are a lot of teachers suffering from heartburn trying to figure out how they will meet all the requirements of T-TESS.  Relax.  The secret to meeting T-TESS requirements is to focus on better implementing better and best practice.

But where to start?  Start (and finish) with working to implement The Fundamental 5 with greater frequency and quality.  Do that and the T-TESS will solve itself.  Sounds too easy? For proof, just review the alignemnt chart below.

No hype, notice how the individual practices of The Fundamental 5 align to the individual components of T-TESS.

The Fundamental 5 and T-TESS

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

The Alignment of The Foundation Trinity and T-TESS

The best advice I give to teachers and administrators as to what to do for T-TESS is this...

Work to get better at implementing better and best practice and T-TESS will solve itself. Don’t work to better implement better and best practice, and it doesn’t matter what evaluation tool is used, you are living on borrowed time. 

So working to get better at implementing better and best practice sounds good, but what does that look like? In the next three post, I will provide visuals that illustrate the alignment of best practice to T-TESS. First up, how the individual components of The Foundation Trinity align to the individual components of T-TESS.

The Foundation Trinity and T-TESS

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

Top LYS Tweets From the Week of June 5, 2016

If you are not following @LYSNation on Twitter, then you missed the Top 10 LYS Tweets from the week of June 5, 2016 when they were first posted.  And if you are on Twitter, you might want to check out the Tweeters who made this week’s list.

1. Congratulations to LYSer, John Schumacher! He is the new Superintendent in Mason ISD!! Who will be next? (By @LYSNation)

2. For our leaders to ignore the current crisis in public education funding is ignorant. For them to deny it is immoral. (By @pastors4txkids)

3. "We starve schools to death by slashing funding and subsequently blame them for dying." (By @pastors4txkids)

4. The best aren't born that way. They work harder and practice more to master their craft. (By @JonGordon11)

5. "In life I never lose, I either win or learn." –Unknown (By @clwilkens)

6. Neighborhood and community schools are the great incubators of American participatory democracy. We make citizens there. (By @pastors4txkids)

7. The Texas Legislature may continue to sacrifice our children's future on the altar of political expediency, but not without us hammering their conscience. (By @pastors4txkids)

8. Know it all leaders do not know as much as they think. (By @TinneyTroy)

9. For all its bravado about a ‘can-do’ economy, Texas wears a dunce cap and sits in the corner when it comes to education funding. (By @pastors4txkids)

10. Texas Governor Greg Abbott on school finance ruling: "A victory for Texas taxpayers" Translation: We don't have to squander money on underfunded Texas schools. (By @WayneSlater)

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

What About T-TESS

A lot of educators have asked me what is my opinion on T-TESS (Texas Teacher Evaluation and Support System).  My general response is that it is much ado about nothing.  But I also realize that is a “cynical old man” response, which really says nothing.  So here is my honest critique.

Overall, T-TESS a better framework than what we had (PDAS). But, it is far from perfect and nowhere near being a cure all.  Good leaders will use the system to good effect.  Poor leaders will misuse the system to poor effect. The sun comes up, the sun goes down...

There are three major flaws to T-TESS that are only apparent to our most cutting edge instructional leaders. Meaning (without insult) that rank-in-file instructional leaders haven’t yet solved the problems in front to these three problems.

Problem 1: I’ve already touched on.  T-TESS is just a tool, not magic. And tools in the hands of lazy and incompetent people can cause a lot of collateral damage. Sadly, having lazy and/or incompetent people in leadership roles is not as rare of an event as we want to believe.  And so end the pessimistic portion of this post.

Problem 2:  A lot of the T-TESS evaluation is driven by what occurs before the lesson even starts.  Planning and collaboration.  Which means that:

A. The campus and teachers need a structured, logical and consistent planning and collaboration process in place.  This is the responsibility of leadership, not teachers. 

B. Leadership has to actively participate in the planning and collaboration process to ensure that it is being implemented and to evaluate (over time) teachers.  If leadership doesn’t do its part, it will not hurt leadership. Instead, it will hurt teachers. 

Problem 3: The system allows novice and lazy instructional leaders to believe that:

A. Formative and summative observations should be co-mingled to create a summative teacher evaluation.

B. Surprise / unannounced observations are acceptable for summative teacher evaluation. 

Let me be clear, individually, A and B are BAD PRACTICE. Used together, A and B simply perpetuates the “Us vs. Them” climate that dogs the professional staff on too many campuses. I’ll expand on this in an upcoming post.

Notice I didn’t even address the student performance component of the system.  That problem isn’t hidden. It is right there for everyone to see.  It’s not that I’m against a student performance component. In theory, I’m an advocate. But in practice, there has to be a way to objectively measure the value added by each individual teacher. That system is not in place.  What is in place is a poorly designed accountability continuum that effectively places some teachers at significant career risk at one end of the continuum and some teachers at no career risk at the other end of the continuum.  It’s hard to sell the benefit of that.

All of the above to say this. T-TESS is better than PDAS and better than what is in place in a lot of other states.  Use T-TESS in an honest attempt to support and coach teachers and you’ll be OK.  Use T-TESS to meet a required mandate and really, nothing will change.  

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote); The 4^th Annual Fundamental 5 National Summit (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook

A Superintendent Shares... Wanna Be An Adnimistrator

An old school LYSer and Superintendent shares the following.

LYS Nation,

I received an email today from a candidate for an assistant principal opening in my school district.  I thought you would enjoy my response:

Dear Mr. Superintendent,

My name is (MASKED).  I am currently teaching Spanish at (MASKED) High School.  This is my third year at (MASKED) HS; however, I taught for nearly 16 years in (MASKED) ISD before.  I am certified in Spanish and have my Principal certification. I have heard through word of mouth that there is an anticipated Assistant Principal position for the (MASKED) ISD.  I wanted to contact you to let you know of my strong desire to be considered for the position should it come available.  I was extremely excited to hear of the potential opening.  I have heard nothing but great things about the tradition of excellence within the (MASKED) ISD, and would love nothing more than to have the opportunity to join the (MASKED) ISD family.  I am certain that the pool of applicants will be extremely large considering the excellent reputation of the district.  Because of this, I was wondering if there is anything I can begin to do in order to become more familiar with what you are looking for in a leadership position.

Thank you in advance for taking time out of your busy schedule to read my letter of interest for the anticipated position.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any advice to offer or would simply like to know more about me.  You are also welcome to contact any leader within the (MASKED) ISD for references.

Best Regards,

Thank you for the email Mr. (MASKED).  You asked for it, so here are my expectations, as superintendent, for the possible Elementary Assistant Principal position when it gets posted. 

Obviously we will be looking for the basics: good leadership ability, good public speaking ability, professional appearance, excellent rating as a classroom teacher, etc. 

At the elementary school, the next Assistant Principal will need to work with teachers to improve their art and skill in teaching younger children. 

• Extensive knowledge in Pre K and Primary teaching strategies.
• Extensive knowledge of how to teach children how to read.  Masters in Reading preferred.
• Knowledge in research-based "centers," small group, and large group instruction. 
• Knowledge in current reading software programs and assessment tools that rate reading ability.
• Experience in using age-appropriate technology 
• Experience leading PLC process as it relates to improving instruction. Not a meeting facilitator. 

Our district (MASKED) ISD also believes in The Fundamental 5 (Cain & Laird). The book, written by two Texas Principals addresses the five teacher behaviors (based on field research in Texas) that improve student achievement.  As an Assistant Principal, you can't just know The Fundamental 5, you have to walk the talk and lead by example to reinforce the adult behavior.  If we know of research-based practices that are best for children and the adults in the building are not practicing them, then that is leadership failure, not a teacher problem.

When you are not in an official meeting or duty, and school is in session, the Assistant Principal will be in classrooms, not in his/her office. This means we take care of “administrivia” after student school hours. When we talk about the administrator being a disciplinarian, we mean self-discipline, you will need to work hard enough so that not only your staff is inspired, but the leaders up the chain take notice at your work ethic as well. 

In addition to that, our elementary school holds an assembly every Friday with singing and dancing to get students fired up for the day, recognizes teachers and students, and reinforces our character education program.  As an Assistant Principal, you will be front and center leading the singing and dancing part of the program.  

So, our new Assistant Principal will need to be a disciplinarian, lead ARDs, be an instructional leader, music teacher, PE teacher, a social worker, have many outside of school duties, up to and including being an occasional bus driver.  

All this, with more days worked, and not much more money.  Pretty glamorous!

If you are still interested, please contact the principal.

SC Response

It would be interesting to know how many people who read this mistakenly believe that you are over-selling your expectations. And then how many who think, “Who wouldn’t want this job!”

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

• Call Jo at (832) 477-LEAD to order your campus set of “The Fundamental 5: The Formula for Quality Instruction.” Individual copies available on Amazon.com!  http://tinyurl.com/Fundamental5 
• Now at the Apple App Store: Fun 5 Timer (Fundamental 5 Delivery Tool); PowerWalks CLC (Networked Formative Observation Tool) 
• Upcoming Presentations: Texas Association of Secondary School Principals Conference (Multiple Presentations); Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association Conference (Multiple Presentations); LYS / TASSP Advanced Leadership Academy (Keynote) 
• Follow Sean Cain and LYS on www.Twitter.com/LYSNation  and like Lead Your School on Facebook