A Reader Writes... (Urban School Myth - Part 2)

In response to the posts relating to, “Urban School Myth,” an old school LYS Principal writes:

“It is always good when Brezina likes a post.

Of course, I know there are scores of problems that make the job of education exceedingly difficult. I also believe that many of those problems are self inflicted. In rural schools, we talk about not having the resources needed to compete with those big city schools. In the big schools, both urban and suburban, we look around and ask ourselves, "What resources are they talking about?"

The urban school myth is but one of a collection of excuses I have noted that educators use to explain away the lack of student success. While working in a large urban district, I made the mistake of discussing my thoughts concerning this particular myth with an assistant superintendent who hid behind the urban school mantra. After presenting the case and laying out the facts, you would not believe her response. She looked at me and said, "Well, you do understand we are not a true urban school. We are an inner city school."

What? That’s the best you can come up with? If you can't logic your wait out of a corner, just restate the excuse using synonyms? At that point, I realized that my skill set in this particular non-LYS district was a waste of their money and my time."

SC Response
Let me start with your “self-inflicted” observations. During my career as “school-district-state plumber,” the sad truth was in most cases the problem is easy to pinpoint, all you had to do was hold up a mirror. That’s both bad news and good news. The bad news being that we are at fault, but the good news is that we can do something about it. If we work, at full speed, on the things that we can control, the uncontrollable (myth) problems solve themselves.

Up until the mid-2000’s, the resource issue was a valid excuse. The rural schools had no infrastructure support. Not because they didn’t want it, but because it didn’t exist. Now you can buy infrastructure (scope and sequence, data processing, etc), and it becomes more affordable every year. If you are in Texas, you need to thank two people for making this possible, Dr. Shirley Neely (Commissioner of Education) and Dr. Nadine Kujawa (Aldine ISD Superintendent). Nadine and Aldine ISD stepped up and gave a cohort of struggling rural school, their scope and sequence, for essentially free. Or as the Aldine leadership team told me, “Let them know, as far as we’re concerned, they are Aldine now.”

Shirley used Aldine and the subsequent success of rural school cohort as the lever to force the ESC’s to step up and better fulfill their purpose. Jump to 2010 and now you have C-Scope and C-Cap, two excellent and evolving curriculum sources that weren’t worth the paper that were then printed on, just six years ago.

Now that tools are readily available, at every campus in every setting, the critical variables are the adults and the quality of leadership (or lack thereof). One of the Maxwell’s Fundamental Laws of Leadership states that a subordinate leader will not work for a leader of inferior skills (in the long run). When you can’t attract good leadership candidates from the outside, nor retain good internal candidates, you have to seek out and address the root cause. This brings us back to the mirror.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Race)

In response to the post, “A Reader Asks… Race,” a reader writes:

“When I took over my last academically unacceptable high school, I was greeted by a number of helpful adults. They all wanted to explain to me that the African American kids in deep East Texas were simply different and unlike any African American kids anywhere else. The adults continued, stating they tracked the progress of the African American students and knew well in advance that due to "those" students the school would inevitably become unacceptable. No one could have stopped it.

This was the culture of the school and it was widely accepted. The effect on the climate was devastating. The only people willing to change the culture in the school were me and the two AP's I hired (all of us outsiders). Even the school board, that included African American members, believed and agreed that nothing could reasonably be done to correct the situation. We proceeded none-the-less.

"Those" African American kids did just fine. In fact, they did so fine the school went from unacceptable to recognized. Did I mention I am white? No, because it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I care deeply for all of my students. Student performance is not a “real” race issue. It is the issue of getting adults to do what is right for kids. That is, it is a culture issue."

SC Response
Here’s what I do know from my work with 100’s of schools.

1. Kids are kids are kids, no matter where they live.

2. Kids do an excellent job of meeting adult expectations. No matter how low or how lofty are those expectations.

3. The critical variables are the adults.

If your kids aren’t performing, you have to look in the mirror. If you want proof, I’ll give you four quick examples.

1 & 2: Both Aldine ISD and Brownsville ISD have recently won the Broad Prize, for being the best urban school district in the country. At the same time that those districts won the prize, they both shared a boarder with some of the weakest school districts in the country.

3. Hairgrove Elementary, in Cypress-Fairbanks ISD, is the second poorest out of 50 elementary schools in the district. Yet their benchmarks scores are consistently in the district’s top 10.

4. Houston Elementary, in Grand Prairie ISD, is one of the poorest of over 20 elementary schools in the district. On their latest district math benchmark test, their third grade scores were first in the district and fourth grade scores were second in the district.

It’s not the kids, it’s the adults.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

A Reader Writes... (Gant Wisdom - Part 1)

In response to the post, “Gant Wisdom,” a reader writes:

"SC, this piece of wisdom is needed in education. The field of education suffers from the affliction of having no real purpose. By this, I mean there is no "bottom line" as there is in business, or any victory to be won as there is in the military. We exist to "educate" children, but there is no clear consensus in many schools of what "educate" means. As a result many schools flounder in the modern world of education accountability. Too often we in education we get caught up on what we like, or who we like, or what our opinion is, rather than focusing on the job at hand. I can't count the times I have been to a school and have heard "we are like a family". That is congeniality, something that is not needed. What we need is collegiality. The two terms sound similar, but they are not the same. The old, conventional wisdom said that being a principal was 80% about personality. In the modern era, this seems to conflict with accountability. What if we said that being a good principal was 80% student results? Food for thought."

SC Response
Food for though? I’ll bite.

I’m going to partially disagree with you on some points. First of all, in education you can either choose to have a purpose or not. And by purpose I mean a true driving force. Campuses and districts with a true sense of purpose achieve and do great things (Hello Aldine ISD – 2009 Broad Prize Winner). Unfortunately, in our field you can choose to just show up and not rock the boat. Those are the districts and campuses that value and celebrate the status quo (Hooray, we’re average?). People who have that type of orientation seem flock to those places and things flounder along (seemingly ok) until accountability catches up with them.

The “family” concept is powerful, but can be either useful of dangerous. Family can either drag you down or pull you up. Don’t fight it, use it. If you are the principal (campus level) or the superintendent (district level), you are Big Momma or Big Daddy. You set the tone and focus for the family. Reward and nurture what you expect. Remediate and prune away what you don’t expect. A strong family can win championships (see: Rooney family, Steelers). A weak family never seems to overcome itself (see: Bidwell family, Cardinals). Unfortunately for you, so far in your young career, you have always been cast as “Mean Step Dad.”

This brings me to your question about the 80% rule (personality vs. results). I think it is both, 80% of the principalship is personality and 80% is student results. The math doesn’t work unless you view the equation as two sides of the same coin. On the people management side, 80% of it is personality. If you are right and a jerk, people focus on the jerk part. The personality piece helps you move people to get the results. On the results side, if you are nice and your school is failing, the superintendent focuses on the failed school part. The positive results piece buys you some time to work on the personality.

Think. Work. Achieve.

Your turn...

The Power of a Common Scope and Sequence

For over four years, it was my responsibility to provide field based support and resources for failing schools in Texas. During that time, I worked with numerous districts and schools and was able to visits thousands of classrooms. There were a lot of things that we learned, but most telling was that the schools that struggled the most were the ones that did not make a state aligned curriculum available for teachers. Individual teachers, responsible for multiple preps, can not keep up with ever changing curriculum requirements, no matter how hard they work. They have to have tools and support.

As such, one of my first tasks was to determine if the district provided a common scope and sequence. If it did, ensuring the consistent use in the classroom became the focus. If a common scope and sequence was not provided, then securing one became paramount. This has become easier over time. Six years ago, there were few options available and they were expensive. Fortunately, Aldine ISD stepped forward have gave access to their scope and sequence to a group of failing small and rural schools, for free. The near immediate success that those schools had in improving student performance created a ripple effect that has been a benefit to both teachers and students.

The first benefit was that the use of a common scope and sequence went from being a good idea, to becoming a recognized best practice. The second benefit was that the regional service centers in Texas banded together to create some curriculum collaboratives, thus providing all districts with access to affordable, aligned and ever evolving curriculum resources. The third benefit was that we learned that an outsourced scope and sequence can reap immediate rewards. Finally, and most importantly, the fourth benefit was that student performance improved.

The days of individual teachers deciding what to teach and when to teach it has to end. Collectively we are always smarter as a whole, that as an individual. Instead of expecting teachers to be experts in all facets of content, let’s give them the tools they need so they can focus their attention on becoming experts in content delivery.

Your turn….