Hiring a School Superintendent

Last night, I had a very good conversation with several parents and teachers, and it set me to thinking more specifically about the next superintendent.  My conversation partners all agreed that we ought to undertake the search for the new superintendent with a real mind to considering a local candidate...someone of the community, who knows the community.

It makes good sense, to at least look seriously--even intentionally--for a 'local.'  The last several candidates from outside the local community have not always made the necessary connections to the people and issues here.

Moreover, in the current climate the stakes are high for a new superintendent, but all too often in the wrong way.  Say we do an extensive and expensive search--through a search firm, no doubt--and get a high-flying education visionary.  Upon arrival, this new superintendent will likely feel the need to show results, and fast.  The impulse to change will be strong, and will push down from the top.  Test scores and other standardized and objective measures will tend to get elevated above other less quantifiable goals.  The ability to patiently determine what already works might be overridden by the desire to show 'improvement' quickly.  Community engagement could become more difficult through all this.

This is not to say that a local candidate would necessarily overcome or transcend all these problems.  This is to say that I think these problems are more likely with an outsider coming in.   Recent superintendents seem to have to arrived partly with the purpose of proving their visionary status as much or more than serving the needs of Tacoma students.

Let's at least consider our own history when hiring a new superintendent.  And let's look for someone who knows that building relationships in community engagement creates a climate conducive to improving schools.  Community engagement is not a parallel or adjunct process in the drive to improve schools.

My Principles on Principals

Students and teachers alike know how important a school principal is.  The principal sets the tone of the school by establishing the climate and culture of the community that “lives” in the building.  

A good principal will shape school goals for student performance by setting good--high but reasonable, useful and challenging--academic and social expectations.  A good principal then knows when and how to challenge, guide, encourage, coach and mentor staff members to support students in meeting these goals.

A good principal establishes a culture of rigor and success, and sets an example of hard work.  This creates a climate conducive to the work--by both staff and students-- necessary for students to thrive.

In short, a good principal is a servant leader to the staff, supporting them to be servant leaders to students and their families.

Tacoma schools need great principals.  

As a board member, I would support a thorough and rigorous process to find the best principals possible.  I would also support the success of current principals by maintaining the highest level of on-going training, evaluation and support. 

Principals, school staff, the community, students and families working together will make Tacoma schools great.

For more, visit me on Facebook.

Teacher Accountability

Teachers, by and large, are not opposed to creating measures of accountability for teacher performance.  Teachers do tend to be anxious about just how the measurements will be taken.  The new law requiring that teacher evaluation include some aspect of student performance will be taking effect within a couple years.  

That's why we need to get to work crafting effective teacher evaluation measures.

Teacher evaluation instruments need to be clear and useful.  Year on year comparison of state standardized test scores do not show teacher effectiveness with a specific student or set of students, and do not account for differences in student performance that arise across different groups of students from one year to the next.  Such year on year comparisons don't really tell all that much about how a specific teacher is doing.

We need, therefore, to develop inexpensive measurements of teacher performance that specifically determine students' growth from September to June.

Teacher evaluations need to be created with some understanding that individual teachers can be in very different stages of professional development.  I am a substantially different teacher today--5 years after starting--than I was during my first year in the class room.  

We need, therefore, evaluation processes that support the development of really effective teachers through consistent work on the part of the individual teachers and the supporting school leadership.

Teacher evaluation processes need to be supple.  We need measurement instruments that take account of factors beyond the schools' control.  Student absenteeism, health or itinerancy, for instance, can adversely affect a student's performance, irrespective of what the school or teacher does to address the situation.

We need, therefore, to develop measurements of student performance that account for important unusual circumstances in some students' school year.

Teacher evaluations need to have a human element.  There are a wide variety of styles, dispositions and personalities that can all be effective in the class room.  It takes discernment by school leaders to understand these nuances.

We need, therefore, to create a reliable teacher evaluation process that enables the students, parents, staff and leadership to talk productively about each child's education and how teachers can best maximize that student's performance.

Teacher accountability can stimulate better, more effective teaching...as long as the measurements of accountability are clear, thorough and useful for parents, teachers and school leaders.

Efficiency in Schools, how to measure it?

Michael Bindas (State needs private schools to boost quality education, June 26) performs something of a sleight of hand in order to support vouchers and parental choice programs for schools.  He asserts that the state’s constitutional duty to provide a system of public education is subordinate to the requirement that the state amply provide for the education of all children.  He apparently draws this conclusion from the fact that the “amply provide” clause comes in Section 9, Article 1 of the state constitution, while the “public system” language follows in Article 2.  

By disconnecting the two provisions and subordinating the idea of a public system, Mr. Bindas can then argue that state money could, and should, be directed toward private schools, especially by way of vouchers.  And why not, private schools provide education for “children with special needs, juvenile inmates and academically at-risk students,” according to Bindas.  But this one’s a headscratcher.  Private schools are notorious for--in richly euphemistic words--‘counseling out’ low performing or difficult students.   Unless they are created specifically to serve such special needs populations, private schools typically have almost none of these kinds of students.

This odd claim does not discredit, however, an argument that improved efficiency, by way of increased competition, would be helpful.  I suggest, though, that we take care with our application of economic reasoning in the question of education, for providing education services is not the same as, say, macaroni production and distribution.  

The buying and selling of goods and services in a market are discrete processes that, though they may be repeated, are fundamentally independent of other purchases. Further, goods like macaroni are not sentient beings with parents who want particular outcomes from the continuous (not discrete) production process. To put it another way, consumer goods purchases are of much lower consequence than educational processes. To wit, switching schools--even in an environment of high school choice--could never be anywhere as easy as an 89-cent macaroni purchase.

Perhaps, though, this inflexibility of movement reflects the problem--lack of options in school choice--that a more robust market in education could solve.  Then again, perhaps it merely reflects the economies of scale problem. Achieving economies of scale means maximizing on the efficiency that comes from production in larger volumes. This side of the economic analysis is often neglected by the advocates education competition because it takes more account of the reality that a capital and labor intensive activity like community-wide education becomes more efficient when done on a larger scale. Lots of variety in schools (and therefore small schools) means smaller scale and reduced efficiency. In other words, two different strains of economic logic actually work at cross purposes in this case. It would be great to have innumerably different types of schools--and it would be cost-ineffective.  Tacoma is, at this moment, closing schools and agglomerating students in order to cut costs by improving on economies of scale.

We need to take care with applying economic reasoning to education production for another reason. Namely, we lack a good metric for 'efficiency' in education.  Economists let prices do a great deal of both the practical communicating and theoretical measuring in their ideas and prescriptions, but pricing of education production is difficult because 'test score outcomes' are not easily monetized, so the correlation between test scores and profit (the monetary measure reflecting gains in efficiency) is merely arbitrary.  So, when Mr. Bindas employs the ‘higher test score at lower cost’ measurement he may be describing an efficiency measure, but he also invokes the risk of incentivizing educators to focus primarily on the test and de-emphasize other non-tested educational goals and material.

This is not to say that the idea of greater competition and wider variety wouldn't be a good thing. And I have no doubt that vouchers, charters or scholarship programs would generate changes in education.  Some changes will be for the better, some not.  Organizational change always has this dual reality.

In the end, then, Bindas’ argument sounds more like one about desires and preferences to have authority over one’s own (children’s) education.  That’s a fair enough desire...as long as we accurately count the costs.

School Board

I am running for school board in the district where I live.

Here's the press release sent out yesterday:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Area Teacher to Run for School Board

Tacoma, WA – June 10, 2011 -  Andrew Milton, an 8^th grade teacher and university adjunct professor, today announced his candidacy for the open Director Position 3 on the Board of the Tacoma School District.  Milton has taught Language Arts in a local school district for the last five years, and university political science for the last 11 years.

Mr. Milton wants to bring his varied experience in education to the board position, saying, “As a teacher, I have insight into what works and what doesn’t.  Even more importantly, I know the need for effective collaboration among the community, school staff and administration.”

He acknowledges that the administrative controversies which have recently embroiled so many local districts are ultimately counterproductive, and wants to work to mitigate such conflicts.  “I see myself as something of an insider with perspective…possessing an understanding of the dynamics of school life, and a commitment to serving the students and families of the school community.”  

Andrew Milton teaches in the Steilacoom Historical School District and at Troy University (on Joint Base Lewis McChord).

Contact:

Andrew Milton

amilton1000@gmail.com

###

Servant Leadership instead of Leading the Servile

I am, how shall I say, fairly close to this situation.  It seems we read about this kind of thing a lot.  At least a couple of districts nearby are having issues of similar sorts in which people are unhappy with the administration.  I believe this stems from a failure of leadership, which derives from the fact that leaders too often think they're drivers, instead of servants.

What we need is more servant leadership.  In education we are always talking about stakeholders--the individuals who have roles, responsibilities and needs, to be met or undertaken in and through the organization.  In the case of schools, the first stakeholders are the students (and, by proxy, their parents).  Everything we do is supposed to be in service to the goals and needs of those families.  

Now, of course, teachers and administrators have a certain set of 'needs,' too, but the only one that really seems relevant is the need to have reasonable working conditions and expectations.  

But all too often, especially with new administrations, it seems like folks think they have something more at stake.  As if they have a bigger stake than they do.  A new superintendent, say, comes in with a lot of big ideas about the best way to do things, and wants to make things work well on his/her watch, to either validate the wisdom of his/her leadership, or show worthiness for even greater leadership responsibility, or both.

The needs of the primary stakeholders may or may not be well-served by this reordering of an administration's priorities, and you might end up with an inversion of the right orientation to the organization's work.

Think of the very opposite of a new administration 'brining in all its own new people,' as so many seem to do.  Why couldn't an administration say to parents, "You chair the committee, along with teachers (the next up the line from students and parents), to pick the new principal.  It's my job as administrator to serve that new principal (by providing guidance, help, support, resources, etc.) succeed in service to you.  Since I am to be his/her servant-leader, I can work with whomever you pick."

I am not saying you'll get a better principal, necessarily, but I do wonder why we assume such a route is to be rejected out of hand, and instead continue to accept that trusting oneself is somehow superior to and more reliable than working with others in a trustworthy way.

Test Results...what to do with them.

Our standardized testing is over.  With not much to do for a couple hours for several days, I got to thinking.

What have our results been like lately, and how would we evaluate the teachers' performance based on these scores?

So, the last two years' scores. 


Level 3 and 4 constitute 'passing.'  Level 1 and 2 are 'not meeting standard.'

The Overall at Standard percentage, then, is the sum total of Levels 3 and 4.

Move to the right for the performance of the 2010 8^th graders when they were in 7^th and 6^th grade.

In other words, each table consists of the results for the same group of students, across the years.

PMS is my school, which consists of two language arts teachers in both 7th and 8th grades, 4 (they do LA-SocStud combinations) in 6th grade.

PMS %  (State %)

2010 8th grade testers	8th grade results	7th grade reading results	7th grade writing results	6th grade results
Overall at Standard	82.8  (69.4)	74.2  (59.3)	82.5  (69.8)	84.9  (68.9)
Level 4	51.2  (43.1)	38.1  (27.2)	37.1  (25.1)	40.2  (25.6)
Level 3	31.5  (25.6)	36.1  (31.2)	45.4  (43.8)	44.7  (42.1)
Level 2	17.2  (18.8)	23.2  (29.1)	17.5  (18.0)	14.0  (23.1)
Level 1	13.3  (10.7)	2.6    (10.2)	5.2    (10.1)	1.1    (7.2)

PMS %  (State %)

2009 8th grade testers	8th grade results	7th grade reading results	7th grade writing results	6th grade results
Overall at Standard	79.6  (67.5)	73.2  (63.1)	77.8  (70.0)	74.2  (68.0)
Level 4	48.4  (34.3)	40.4  (34.3)	22.2  (24.3)	26.3  (25.9)
Level 3	31.1  (32.5)	32.8  (27.9)	55.6  (44.8)	47.9  (41.0)
Level 2	14.2  (21.1)	20.2  (26.5)	18.2  (19.2)	20.5  (24.0)
Level 1	5.3  (9.8)	5.1    (9.4)	3.0    (9.3)	5.3    (6.9)

I still don't know what to read in these figures.  It's great that we're above our state average.  I don't know how much that has to do with me, or any other teacher, though.
(Note that most of the time we're also lowering than the state average on the 'not passing' scores.)

I was also pleased to see higher numbers passing at Level 4.  Then again, I don't know if anybody has talked of making that a measure of teacher performance.  What about 2010 in 8th grade?  High Level 4 pass rate, but also higher than the state on Level 1 scores.  Is that good, bad, or what?

What do we do with 7th grade, which tests on two language arts related subjects?  Do we evaluate their test outcomes differently?

I hope this becomes clearer, and more open, than the test development process.