Introit

About to Take a Leap

I am about to take a leap into the unknown... one is a road travelled before by many (and many who read this blog) and another is one tread by few.

Most of my life, in one way or another, has been spent in independent schools.  I grew up going to a wonderful, small, community-based independent middle school; and then went off to boarding school for high school.  After college, graduate school, and some work at the university level, I came back to independent schools seven years ago to teach.  For the last seven years, I have tread on a path familiar to those who have worked in independent schools since the 1950s and before: teacher, coach, advisor, club advisor, and administrator.  So, after a series of progressive moves within the school, it is not an uncommon path (but still a personal leap) that I am taking to become the head of a school.

What is uncommon is that I am leaving to head an online school.

Most independent school educators have the notion that online education is a lesser brand of education that what we do in independent schools.  It is impersonal, cold, cheap, shallow, thoughtless, computer-based, and easy.  Whereas, they argue, what we do in independent schools is personal, warm, elite, deep, thoughtful, relationship-based, and challenging.  The words that those in the independent school community use about online education and independent school education are almost always the exact opposite of each other.

Independent school educators point to articles, like this one from the New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/education/06online.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&src=tptw to document how online education is at best "not what we do" and at worst "ruining education in America."

And yet, online education is exploding in popularity.  Estimates from iNACOL, the international association for K-12 online learning, put the number of students taking online courses at the K-12 level at 1.5 million (http://www.inacol.org/research/docs/iNCL_NationalPrimerv22010-web.pdf).  A 2010 survey by Sloan-C, the higher education consortium for online learning, found that 5.6 million college students were taking courses online (http://sloanconsortium.org/publications/survey/class_differences).

Two years ago, a few independent school educators got together to ask: "With that many students taking courses, is online education really as bad as we think that it is?"  The short answer: well, yes, a lot of what is out there is not that great, but it does not seem to have to be that way.

The group of educators built a theory that the construct "online education" did not have to be in opposition to the construct "independent school" education.  They focused on what they knew, girls schools, and began to build an organization that became the Online School for Girls.  In many senses, the path that they took was a well tread path for starting an independent school: decide on a mission and guiding philosophy, create a guiding pedagogical approach, register as a non-profit organization, hire teachers, and build a space for learning.  What was a little different was that they worked at hyper speed: ideas in February and March; bring together group of schools and individuals to work on the project in April and May; register as non-profit in June; and open doors in September.

In September of that year, the Online School for Girls opened its virtual doors for two semester-long courses, with the backing of four schools.  Two years later, the School will begin the 2011-2012 year with seven year-long courses, eight semester-long courses, five summer courses, and five professional development courses.  At some point this summer, the School will have educated more than 500 students and teachers; by later next year, that number will likely be doubled.  And, there are now forty-seven schools that are a part of the Online School for Girls: http://www.onlineschoolforgirls.org/community/our-schools

Why such growth and success?  The Online School for Girls thinks that is is because it has succeeded in bringing together the best of "online education" and "independent school education," in the process forging an independent school vision for online and blended learning.

From "independent school education," the School brought a mission-based approach to education, absolutely incredible teachers, an emphasis on personal and connected relationships, and small classes.

From "online education," the School brought a flexible learning approach of asynchronous courses, a greater emphasis on accountability and transparency, and the ability to meet students where they are in better ways.

What the Online School for Girls has shown is that "online education" and "independent school education" do not have to be in conflict with each other, even if they certainly can be.

That is why even though the path is not well tread from working in an independent school to heading an online school, I am proud to make that leap.

Brad Rathgeber is about to become the Director of the Online School for Girls in Bethesda, Maryand.  He can be reached at: brad.rathgeber@onlineschoolforgirls.org.  Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/brad_rathgeber or follow the Online School for Girls at http://twitter.com/os4g

Pick Your Battles Wisely

It is an honor to have been asked by Kevin to write a guest post for Introit.  The article below is also published on my blog, The Art of Education.

Many thanks,

Troy P. Roddy, Ph.D. 

On the morning of January 8, 1815, British Major-General Edward Pakenham ordered a two-pronged assault against a largely out numbered American force led by General Andrew Jackson.  The assault took place on the site of the Chalmette Plantation near New Orleans.  Thus, the Battle of New Orleans, the final major battle of the War of 1812, began.  Although much of the pre-battle preparations were either poorly executed or not executed at all, Pakenham was determined to defeat Jackson’s force.  His reliance on his overwhelming numbers and his troops’ training overshadowed any concern about the multitude of obvious challenges facing a British victory.  Weather, landscape, timing, morale, motivation, etc. all were in favor of Jackson and his entrenched American troops.

When the fighting ended (after about 20 minutes, the withdrawal was ordered), the Americans earned one of the most lopsided victories in American military history.

• British:  2,042 casualties (291 killed; including Pakenham, 1,267 wounded, and 484 captured or missing)
• Americans:  71 casualties (13 dead, 39 wounded, and 19 missing)

This is just a single example of one of the most important skills that educational leaders must have.

Pick Your Battles Wisely!

Everyday, educational leaders are asked to make decisions.  Sometimes these decisions are somewhat easy.  There is a clear good or bad choice.  Given clear goals and objectives, decisions can often take an obvious form.  There are other times, though, that decisions fall in a hazy “grey area” where there is not necessarily a clear choice.

In these situations, leaders need to take into consideration many pieces of information and hold each of these up against the mission, vision, and goals of the school.  The leader’s responsibility is to ensure that the school’s operations are aligned with and are actively promoting the mission and philosophy of the institution.  If more than one mission appropriate option is available, leaders should examine the strengths and challenges of those who will be tasked with performing the decision (or who are most affected by the decision).  In many cases, this may provide an insight in to what will be most effective once implemented.  If the leader can get a clear sense of the issue at hand, the options available, and the assets at her disposal, there is a great opportunity for success.

There is another situation that also requires wise “battle plans.”  I find it more often in private and independent schools.  It is the teacher who expects the administrator to back them up on all their decisions in the class.  This is a challenging issue because many educational leaders have a default mode that wants to support the teacher. 

Would we want any other default mode of thinking from our school leaders?

Unfortunately, this also implies that when a conflict between a teacher and student or teacher and parent occur, the teacher is ALWAYS right.  The fact of the matter is that sometimes the teacher is not right and the wise school leader will help navigate this difficult terrain with the interests of all parties in mind.

Here is an example. 

Mr. Jones has a class policy that was not in his syllabus at the beginning of the year nor has he shared his policy with his division director.  The policy goes something like this: 

• Students cannot talk during the taking of tests or quizzes (so far, so good)
• The policy applies to students who are taking the assessment or who have already finished (again, we’re ok)
• But the response from Mr. Jones, if a student is caught talking, is to throw away the student’s assessment ungraded and with no feedback to the student

Mr. Jones’ division administrator questions the reaction because it seems to run counter to the mission and philosophy of the school.  It also does not allow for any growth on the part of the student nor does the response allow Mr. Jones to assess how well the student understands the lessons.  The leader agrees that the initial policy was fine, but the response seems out of alignment.  Mr. Jones is asked to reflect on the response and suggest alternatives – all of which Mr. Jones refuses to do.  In his opinion, the response was sound and in keeping with his class policy.

The administrator now has a decision to make.  Among other choices, she can:

1. Back Mr. Jones, but at the expense of what she believes is a class policy that runs counter to the mission and philosophy of the school.
2. Coach Mr. Jones to understand that his position is counter to the mission and philosophy, explain why and how it is, and inform him that if he (Mr. Jones) chooses to fight this battle, it will be hard to provide the support he may need.
3. Tell Mr. Jones that his policy is not in keeping with the mission and philosophy of the school and that he needs to repair the situation with the student.  After doing so, the leader offers to help Mr. Jones do this in a manner that helps him “save face” with the student and the student’s family.

In the end, Mr. Jones needs coaching in order to step away from his fixed mindset (questioning his class policy as an attack on his professionalism).  If successful, the work of the administrator moves Mr. Jones to accept that the policy situation was actually an opportunity to reflect and grow as a teacher who has chosen to promote and support the mission and philosophy of the school.

Success is the result of many factors.  Success in schools can also be defined in many ways.  Whether it is student achievement, enrollment, tests scores, college acceptances, school-community relations, or choosing when to mobilize your army for an assault; leaders who are skilled in picking their battles wisely are ultimately among the more effective. 

Consequences of Choice

As schools, our choices shape the footprint that we leave in the world, as experienced through the lives of our graduates. We talk much about mission and its importance, precisely because mission is important: mission is our footprint.

As Kevin Kelly writes in What Technology Wants, "We have latitude in selecting the defaults of our mass education, so that we can nudge the system to maximize equality or to favor excellence or to foster innovation. We can bias the invention of the industrial assembly line either toward optimization of output or toward optimization of worker skills; those two paths yield different cultures. Every technological system can be set with alternative defaults that will change the character and personality of that technology" (184).

Does your school actively create its footprint, or does it let external forces create it? Does your school strive to optimize output (highest SAT scores, highest AP scores, college placement sans pareil), or does it strive to optimize the skill set of the soon-to-be graduates so that they can be adaptable and successful learners for the rest of their lives? Perhaps it's a bit of both at your school.

Some schools, however, aren't clear at all on what their mission is, and they're suffering, especially in this economy. Their choice, actually, their absence of choice in terms of articulating and celebrating their mission, can be seen easily by numerous parties: parents, students, civic leaders, you name it. Those schools look very much like North Korea, as viewed from space at night:

Notice that North Korea is almost entirely dark. There is a speck of light, signifying some potential for creating something, but, for the most part, the absence of light is remarkable, compared with the countries surrounding it.

Where is the innovation? Where are the "bright lights" in that school? How will that school keep pace with others in its market place?

Choice matters. Dark or light?

Space Between the Frames

In his two-week-old book, Poke the Box, Seth Godin writes about Scott McCloud's publication, Understanding Comics, noting the following:

"The secret of comics isn't what you see in each frame. It's the little gutter, the space in between the frames. Because the artist doesn't draw it, that space is left up to you. It pulls you in. You create the narrative as the story moves along" (63).

That comment reminds me of schools. Many times, what [insert group here: parents, media, etc.] don't see is "the little gutter". That space is where the teacher-student relationship can flourish; that is where students learn how to make decisions--some bad, some good. The good decisions should grossly outweigh the bad ones, depending on the quality of the teacher-student relationship. Society can prattle on all it wants about standardized exams as indicators of x.y, or z, but, in all honesty, relationships are what matter. Just ask any teacher who has been there.

Good schools are about relationships. Good teaching is about relationships. Leadership is about relationships.

Paradigm for Professional Development

In thinking about professional development lately, and dovetailing with Mark Crotty's thoughtful post yesterday, I'd like to offer the following visual paradigm for professional development. Its construction is meant to facilitate application in most independent schools.

I would very much welcome feedback from readers, including suggestions for emendations, about its potential as a useful paradigm.

  Download Professional Development Paradigm

 

 

 

 

 

Assessing the AP Program

The Harvard Education Newsletter (26.3, May/June 2010) contains an article that is meant to serve as a further exploration of the book, AP: A Critical Examination of the Advanced Placement Program (2010). The book in question is a compilation of research on AP programs across the nation, including some opposing viewpoints on interpretation of data and/or trends.

The Newsletter article, an interview with one of the editors of the book, is useful to independent school educators and school leaders (as well as boards) because it offers a perspective on the AP that is not necessarily the perspective that we have in independent schools. Following are some of the findings, which many of us in independent schools knew (or perceived) already. For some, I have added a remark or a question that follows.

• the number of AP courses offered is being used as a way for college admission offices to differentiate one high school from another (i.e., determine which one is more "rigorous"). This approach creates a race to see who can offer more courses, but are they appropriately staffed and do the kids find success on the exams?
• students can take an AP course as the first course in a given subject area, rather than as the culmination of their efforts in that subject area (increasing flexibility in timing of when AP courses can be taken). This approach expands the number of opportunities for kids to take an AP exam, but has a negative result on the scores.
• one of the thoughts behind AP is that, if a student were to take an AP in subject area X, then s/he might be more likely to major in that subject in college. What about the kid who has five to eight APs (or more) on his/her high school transcript? What does that mean? Does it merely mean that that particular student was out to "game" the admission office?
• the editor interviewed says he believes that, if any credit at all is to be given, it should be only for scores of 4 or 5; that accepting 3s for credit means a disproportianately higher percentage of students will reach 3 or higher, thereby receiving credit. I would argue that accepting only 4s or 5s now enters into the domain of "AP inflation." If so many more kids can earn 3s, does that say anything about the lack of quality/rigor of the exams? Or, conversely, might it suggest that students today are smarter than they were one generation ago?
• regarding graduating college earlier on account of having so many AP credits, it is a rare occurrence. So, where's the power of that argument?
• the trend of high schools seeking to offer more AP courses remains intact; it will continue to happen. The "outcome" of this research suggests that the schools should try to ensure that the AP courses are high-quality in nature and that the teacher has adequate professional development so as to ensure a solid student experience.
• AP courses can have wide variations between AP scores and course grades. Therefore, argues the interviewee, the AP scores should reflect the strength of the actual course. In other words, if the scores are low, so is the quality of the course, and therefore the instructor. The course should not exist if it cannot be staffed appropriately. At least, that is the logic that ensues from what the editor states.

The reasons, therefore, that public high schools and independent schools offer APs, I think, are rather different. We share the college admission "race" with each other, but it seems to me that the independent schools that choose to offer AP courses do so for the traditional reason of academic rigor. But has the "academic rigor" argument changed in fundamental ways, so that independent school AP offerings no longer carry the weight they once did?

Here we find a discussion that has picked up steam in recent years.

The "Beyond AP" schools ave been posing many good questions about this inverse relationship regarding the AP. If public schools (and I'm not criticizing them; I'm merely showing how our philosophies and perspectives are different) are encouraged to offer more AP courses because it bespeaks their "rigor" as an institution, would doing the same thing benefit independent schools?

Of course not. We have self-selected, by ontological means, to be rigorous schools. If, then, we are rigorous from an ontological perspective, what do our AP courses mean when weighed against those of a public high school with which we may compete for students?

So, to read this book and the concomitant interview in the newsletter, one sees a side of the AP world that is perhaps a bit foreign to how we think of APs in our schools. I'm not convinced that college admission offices can continue to weigh programs equally when comparing them (i.e. public schools and independent schools) in terms of their effectiveness with APs, given that more and more public high schools are offering APs as a means of showing their "rigor."

What is your school's contribution to that question?

Centenarians and Schools

My great-aunt passed away last week at the age of 100. Quite a remarkable woman. She gave up driving at 98, and she had all her faculties about her until the last month or two, when they began to slip, even though her long-term memory remained as sharp as a tack.

Driving home from the funeral service last evening, I couldn't help but marvel at her life span, and what that meant for organizations to which she was attached. For example, she was a member of the same church for 100 years. That meant that she remembered when the preaching changed from German to English, among myriad other changes and evolutions.

100 years with the same organization! Of course, that got me thinking about centenarians and schools. Those folks who are around 100 years old right now have been around longer than the majority of independent schools in the United States. Imagine being able to tap into someone who has 100 years (more or less) with your school...wouldn't that be (potentially) powerful? One wonders what stories they might share, what changes they agreed (and disagreed) with, how many heads of school they might have seen pass through the school, not to mention how many school sites they might have seen (starting out in one location, moving to another, then building a third, etc.). Their testimony to the life of a school would be noteworthy. One hopes that development offices and heads are making connections with these folks, helping to fill in the "story of the school."

In contemplating my great-aunt's life, I had to marvel at her capacity for patience and perspicacity, meaning that I admired how she was able to weather change beautifully, always considering the good that would come in the long-term. In that sense, she is a model for boards of trustees, whose focal point should be on the "school-that-is-becoming..." That sense of duty toward an institution is what separates successful schools from failing ones: patience and perspicacity help to steer the ship on a steady course.

When Enough is Enough

Last winter brought some light flurries to Independent School Land, but it was no snowstorm. Permit me to elaborate: the flurries were school closures in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States. I'm not minimizing these closures by calling them "flurries"; however, what I am suggesting is that they might represent the calm before the snowstorm: a more significant number of closures.

What we're experiencing now, in terms of an economy that is tepid at best (not to mention jobless), is as real as it gets. This is the new normal, for the foreseeable future.

We all know independent schools that have suffered greatly as a result of the financial crisis and its lasting effects. For some, these past two years have served to bring together frayed strands within the school, leading to a unity of purpose and mission; these schools will weather the crisis. In the end, they will be survivors, though perhaps tarnished in some respects: down, but not out. For others, however, these past two years have served to precipitate a decline that was inevitable, as these schools were poorly managed on all fronts, from the board through the administration and into the faculty and staff. Finances were treated loosely, things were put off until tomorrow (think deferred maintenance, professional development, replenishment of course materials, technology infrastructure...), and the boards spent no time (or precious little) learning about their responsibilities. The result, a tremendously weakened school, is the logical result. Imagine trying to pick up the pieces at this point... Blame will be assigned everywhere, usually to those who are no longer present, when what is needed is a mirror.

When is enough, enough?

What will it take in these tense times to make such schools realize that the best thing for the school community may be for the school to end its run? How long can schools rob Peter to pay Paul? Vendor relationships will be the first to go; faculty/staff casualties will happen along the way, although a few will hang on, hoping for some sort of miracle from on high, even when their benefits are eliminated entirely and they're teaching 30 kids in a section; they will cling to the thread of hope that somehow, some way, the school will find its footing again, enrollment will grow dramatically, and all will be right with the world. Families, of course, will sense this discord immediately and begin to withdraw, either at the end of the current year, or perhaps immediately (be ready for those mid-year transfers).

My worry for those schools who actually possess the wherewithal to determine that "enough is enough" is that they'll decide "enough is enough" in mid-May, at that last board meeting of the year. After the bulk of the admission season is over. After they have re-enrollment contracts from a dwindling number of families. After they've downsized the faculty and staff...again. After they have eliminated yet more (if not all) benefits. After teachers have signed contracts for the next school year. After families have already begun to pay tuition for the next year...and the school has already begun to spend it in the current year, violating the confidence and trust that those families have in the school. After the school can no longer place the vast majority of its students in other independent schools, since their admission season has all but closed. After the school has sucked out the very marrow of life of those in its employ.

So I ask again: when is enough, enough?

Uncovering the Soul

All independent schools have souls, but, as independent school folks, we cannot pinpoint exactly when and where "ensoulment" happened in a given school, even our own. Suffice it to say that somewhere along the way, ensoulment occurred, and it now serves as a marker of each school.

The point of thinking about the soul of a school has nothing to do with trying to identify the precise moment of ensoulment, but represents instead a process of uncovering the soul, of lifting the cover in order to reconnoiter a bit, looking for those hard-to-define pieces of school life and culture that contribute to the school's soul.

If you were to give an assignment to your school's senior class to uncover the soul of your school, what would that project look like? Where would the student go? Whom would they question, and what questions would they ask? Here's a bigger question: are students today, i.e. those about to graduate our fine institutions, prepared to handle this kind of assignment? I think they are, but I also think this kind of question represents a prime opportunity for us to assess whether they've been able to synthesize everything they have learned. If we were to create teams of, say, five students, and give them this assignment ("Uncover the soul of your school"), would they be able to 1) tackle the question by cross-referencing disciplines and "the abstract" in their minds and 2) coordinate the team appropriately? Also, how much time would we give them? One week? More? Is it a year-long project? What would we expect as the final product? A video? A paper? A dynamic presentation allowing for multiple inputs and media choices?

How might a faculty member or an administrative leader go about uncovering the soul of the school, especially if that person is new to the community?

Is it easy to "see the soul" at your school?

Recognizing Misalignment

Schools are organizations that have a particular design; sometimes that design works well, and at times it does not. The financial crisis represents a sad example of what can happen when alignment--the "strategic and programmatic agreement" within an organization that runs from the top to the bottom, from ideation to performance--fails. Given that we have a very recent example of what can happen when there is misalignment, what are we doing to ensure full alignment, going forward?

At a time when reset and redefinition have become the norm of the world around us, we need to provide certainty to our students and their families, as well as to prospective families. That is very much about alignment.

If you recognize misalignment within your school, what will you do about it? Do you--faculty member, staff member, mid-level administrator, division head, head--have the perceived luxury of ignoring the misalignment? What are the consequences to ignoring it? How do you move toward re-alignment?