When I first began at the Nord Family Foundation, I agreed to serve as program officer for education. I had experience teaching high school for a few semesters and teaching at the college level. Realizing my limitations, decided it was essential for me to learn more about what teachers go through every day. The best way to do this, I thought, was to form a book club which I did with the help of colleauges at Center for Leadership in Education which the foundation funded. Seven school professionals participated and consisted of middle, high school and elemetary teachers as well as a first-year school principal from a rural school district. Our book was Victory in Our Schools – We CAN Give Our Children Excellent Public Education by Major General John Stanford. Gen. Stanford was elected Superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools in 1995 and initiated a quality reform effort with lasting postive results. Gen. Stanford died of lukemia in 1998 and was mourned deeply by the Seattle community.
Our book club met faithfully and teachers found it a safe environment to share their experiences of being in classrooms. They loved the intellectual challenge and everyone kept their assignments faithfully. What I found was an alarmingly bright gathering of people who felt as though the “system” treated them as children. The felt as though their creativity as professionals was not really respected by supervisors and they yearned for more communication with supervisors. I will remember one passage toward the end of the book that resulted in lengthy discussion for two sessions.
General Stanford writes, “As the CEO of this ailing business, I had high aspirations. I wanted to be in the Fortune 500 of educational institutions. …We’d have to act as if every one of our customers had a choice about whether or not to use us, and we’d have to do everything we could to become every customers first choice.”
This was another philosophical shift in public education. The schools were accustomed to operating as if they were part of a command economy like the one in the former Soviety Union. Money and students were alloted by the central administration; the survival of individual schools was guaranteed regardless of customer satisfaction and customers had to accept the prudcut whether they liked it or not.”
This section of the book on page 186 resonated with the teachers. This was shortly after the reforms of t he No Child Left Behind Act resulted in a frenzy of high-stakes testing in the schools. The teachers I spoke with lamented the fact that their school principals and superintendents focused now on producing schools that would make the Officials at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) happy. Superintendents began competing for report card scores in the same way they compete for football or baseball standings. The tests were the game and the goal was to win no matter what. Teachers felt as if a punative system was in place in which the Centeral Offices were now positioned to threaten teaching that did not align with their rapidly developed assessment tools.
Ten years after General Stanford’s death, schools have made efforts to change the philosphy toward better customer service. That is, I find, a slow process. In Oberlin where I live I have heard several teachers say that parents are a nuisance and should leave the teachers to do what the do best. There is little sense of customer service. In my time visiting schools and talking with teachers throughout Ohio, Colorado and South Carolina few would disagree with General Stanford’s original comment. Public Schools in this country continue to function as the last bastion of the Soviet style command economy. Until recently, charter schools and alternative schools were seen as diabolical. Even today, education reporters from The Cleveland Plain dealer write as if charter schools “take” money from the public system. Few take the time to help the reader understand that Charter Schools ARE Public Schools – they simply have a little more freedom to do what needs to be done to run a school like a business that is locally owned.
The parallels between the old Soviet system are helpful when one tries to understand why it is so difficult to encourage innovation within the system. At the Centeral Offices, the focus is on a standardized system that fits all. The assesment tools are created in ways that make it easy for a teacher to gather data quickly so that the people at Data Central can churnc that data out. The assessments are summative – i.e. a snapshot that serve to determine a minimal level of competency for a student. I found this summative assessment to be embedded in the teachers vocabulary. I attended a local meeting of teachers and superintendents from Lorain County at the local community college. The topic of conversations was, “How we can achieve ADEQUATE schools for the children of the county.” I was depressed and lost patience with the group and challenged them as to why they would not be talking about how to achieve EXCELLENT schools in the county?
The challenge for most states is to determine how schools can have the freedom to develop formative assessment tools that work. To do this, one needs to change the way we allow students to learn. Proper use of techonology can facilitate this process. There are teachers who are using technology in very innovative ways and finding remarkable results. Too often, this innovation happens outside the system and often without the approval of the principal or superintendent.
For really interesting discussion on this topic listen to archived recordings from the website EdTechTalk – Teacher on Teaching.
I have just finished reading Clayton Christensen’s book called Disrupting Class This book is a must read for every educator and/or education policymaker in this country. Not only does Dr. Christensen explain how and why innovation can and cannot take place within public schools, but he challenges us to view public education as an old bureucratic system that is being challenged by innovation and activities that are happening with success outside its reach. In many ways, Mr. Christensen is a Yeltsin to our public school leaders. Depending on which part of the country you reside, we have local and state leaders who are devout “party” members who are like Gorbechev’s trying desperatly to reform the system from within. In philanthropy, I think we have a growing number of people who see the writing on the wall and realize we must look for pockets of innovation in education and help bring it to scale.
Thanks for the post. Very interesting insights. I certainly hadn’t heard the Christensen-Yeltsin comparison before either, but it’s an intriguing point.
Charter Schools are NOT public schools.
Public schools are NOT run by big corporations (White Hat, K12, etc.).
Public schools have one purpose: to teach our children.
Remove for-profit schools from the charter system and then we can have a serious discussion about school choice.
Dear Joseph. You should check your references. Charter Schools are indeed public schools. The following is from the US Charter School network.
Overview
Charter schools are nonsectarian public schools of choice that operate with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools. The “charter” establishing each such school is a performance contract detailing the school’s mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success. The length of time for which charters are granted varies, but most are granted for 3-5 years. At the end of the term, the entity granting the charter may renew the school’s contract. Charter schools are accountable to their sponsor– usually a state or local school board– to produce positive academic results and adhere to the charter contract. The basic concept of charter schools is that they exercise increased autonomy in return for this accountability. They are accountable for both academic results and fiscal practices to several groups: the sponsor that grants them, the parents who choose them, and the public that funds them.
For the legal definition of a charter school in a particular state, consult that state’s charter school law through our State Profiles area. We also provide a sampling of other charter school Definitions. To find research on charter schools, visit our Resources area.
You should also check individual state legislation that allows for charter school and “community schools” as they are known in some states. You will find they are indeed public.
I frequently have the opportunity to work with Denise Snowden (Shelton) who worked with the book club at the Center. We compared notes about book studies and I learned a lot. We are approaching 100 members (about 25 at a time) in our Courage to Teach book study. We selected Parker Palmer’s Courage to Teach because we felt that despite the fact that major overhauls of system elements are necessary before we can transform public education into a workable entity, teachers must create meaning from their practice and find a way to persevere in the midst of the current system.
Katie Bunsey from the Center has crafted a continuation of the book study called Seasons of Courage. Based upon the seasonal integral approach, the group gathers quarterly to consider the elements of their teaching that sustain them and to figure out what to do about the elements that must be discontinued.
We must find a way to talk to one another about issues of teaching and learning in an atmosphere of collegiality and support. Unless, and until, that happens, larger issues of transformation will remain unaddressed.
I have frequent opportunities to work with Denise Snowden (Shelton) who worked with the book club at the Center. We compared notes and I learned a lot.
Our current book club is now approaching 100 members (in groups of 25). We read Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach.
Recently, Katie Bunsey has established a continuation to the book club that is called Seasons of Courage. She utilizes a seasonal integral approach to develop a network of teachers that continually examine their practice and collectively develop strategies for sustaining the parts of their practice that connect them with “why they became teachers.”
Just as there is no one path to school improvement, there is no ideal level. State policy action and individual teacher support and nurturing, along with every effort in-between, will be required to produce the transformation we need.