Introit

Context is Everything

Two articles in the current issue of Korn/Ferry Briefings on Talent & Leadership really hit home. Each delves into the value of a liberal arts education as the ideal formative background for leadership. The authors (leaders themselves) and other leaders highlighted/cited have liberal arts backgrounds to which they return constantly as they contemplate strategy, vision, and the development of talent in their organizations. For them, the liberal arts trained them to look at context. Context is everything.

Speaking of context, what resonated all the more strongly with me was the context within which these articles were placed. This issue of Briefings centers on education, with a notable focus on STEM jobs, programs, initiatives, etc.

For all the talk about STEM in this issue, these heavy-hitting articles extoled the virtues of a liberal arts background. These leaders (including a military leader and a Fortune 100 leader) were adamant about honing one's mind across disciplines, analyzing, synthesizing...tying together ideas, peoples, themes, movements. So much aligns with what we value in independent schools. 

The STEM jobs are very real, yet I was moved by these leaders' arguments in favor of a full-blown liberal arts background for those who aspire to leadership. The liberal arts allow a person to contextualize what is happening (or needs to happen) in an organization by considering similarly-structured events, whether from history or literature. There is strength to be drawn from historical or literary figures as well, strength that impacts a leader's character and helps to inform his/her decisions. Nowhere was this more evident than in some coursework I completed this summer: the group was predominantly engineers (STEM folks, to be sure), and yet we worked through a decision-making problem by considering the context of Shakespeare's Hamlet. It was, in a word, powerful.

What worries me about the preponderance of STEM initiatives (buildings, programs, etc.) in independent schools is that, without meaning to, yet by not paying close enough attention, our schools may downplay (or, even worse, dismiss and then lose) the contextual value that liberal arts provide, all in an effort to appear competitive on the STEM front.

And for what gain?

Going Bold

As the end of the calendar year looms in front of us, I've been reflecting on Will Richardson's inquiry regarding "bold schools" back in January on his blog (Jan. 7, 2012). Will wrote,

"We need schools that are bold in their practice right now. And by “bold” I mean schools that make sure their kids pass the test and get “college ready” because, unfortunately, that’s about the only definition of “success” that people want to talk about right now, but also schools that prepare their kids for a world that the tests and the definitions of “readiness” or “achievement” haven’t caught up to yet."

I corresponded with Will on this matter, so I feel a rather strong personal connection to it. In particular, I feel the personal connection because I believe that assessment is the issue of our time. As Will mentions, "the tests and the definitions of 'readiness' and 'achievement'" haven't caught up with what the world demands of our graduates. For example, the overwhelming majority of current assessments continue to be structured in such a way that there is only one correct answer; moreover, the kinds of problems presented in these assessments tend to be lower-level tasks. They're not about high-level cognitive tasks, the kind the world demands of our students. They're not about creative problem-solving. They tend to be assessments that can be graded via scantron (you know, bubble sheets that are read by a computer). Although that method of "grading" is efficient (if nothing else), by design it eliminates complexity and creativity in thought.

So, how might "going bold" look? Following are some thoughts:

• schools that are looking to norm their students against the world, not just against other American students. After all, our kids will be competing for jobs against an international and more transient population, not so much "the kid down the block."
• schools that are looking to own their assessment structure. In other words, schools that are willing to create assessments that reflect a measurement of what they value. In all likelihood, that means a blend of some efficiently-graded instruments (on a MUCH reduced scale) and new ways to collect and measure "soft" data such as engagement and cultural competencies.
• schools that are educating parents on the lack of meaning (or any relevance at all) in the SAT. We continue to look at SAT scores as some marker of distinction, but the truth is that they don't correlate to anything that holds true meaning insofar as learning is concerned. Visit fairtest.org and dig around...you won't have to dig deeply.
• schools that are network-minded: schools that are purposeful about creating learning networks with other schools...and not just schools, but with like-minded organizations and individuals, all of whom/which are concerned about learning.
• schools that focus relentlessly on the formation of character, with an eye to having graduates be young men and women of competence whose judgment is keen: when faced with a decision in their lives, they will make a values-based decision.

Assessment: The Issue of Our Time

There are many issues in education that attract our attention, but I'm convinced that "the" issue of our time is that of assessment. Whether it's a question of ERB scores, SAT scores, AP scores, or the like, we as a society are focused intently on the notion of assessment.

We need to take a step back and ask ourselves and our communities: "What do we value, and why?" The follow-up question becomes, "How might we measure that?" In short, we would benefit from re-assessing assessment itself.

I'm not arguing for no assessment; I'm arguing for assessment that provides us with useful data that correlate with what we value as places of learning. We will need to identify a path for correlation so that the data make sense to our boards, our leadership team, our faculty, and our parents and students.

Many schools publish SAT scores, whether in the college guidance section of the website or elsewhere. Boards are keen to see the SAT data; one can imagine (or experience) the hand-wringing and finger-pointing when SAT scores decline by, let's say, 20 points (not percentage points, but pure points, i.e., from 610 to 590 on a given section).

Yet, let's consider the "value" of the SAT. What does it actually show us? What are the correlative data points? How does the SAT correspond to the values that we embrace in our schools? The SAT falls remarkably short on providing anything correlative to student success. The College Board has had to change the name twice because of the New York State Truth in Testing statute. It has nothing to do with aptitude, and it has nothing to do with achievement. Yet the fact remains: it is an important barometer; at least, it is perceived to be so. Perception does not equal reality, however.

For some time now, Pat Bassett has been a proponent of changing the college admission process; in other words, he would like to see colleges move away from the SAT. It's not a holistic assessment.

Have we considered (at the board level and at the faculty level) how we might propose measuring what we value in schools? What might that look like?

Positive Impact of Small Schools

Harry Eyres always writes a thoughtful column in the weekend edition of the Financial Times; he didn't disappoint on the weekend of June 30/July 1 (2012) with his piece entitled "Small school of thought." He is effusive in his praise of small schools, and I thought that I would share some of his thoughts with the readers of Introit, as there is much here that resonates with us in independent schools.

• "My first school was not just a small school but a very small school indeed. I think there were usually around 27 pupils, taught by two remarkable women: a charismatic, creative dynamo called Miss Allen and quiet, wise Miss Bagehot, who apart from keeping us reasonably calm (and providing voluminous bloomers for little girls who had accidents), I guess performed the same role for her gifted, volcanic colleague and friend."
• "I was always a little bit afraid of Miss Allen because of this explosive tendency but the brightness with which the school shone, the sense of possibilities it gave us, came from her."
• "But Miss Allen and Miss Bagehot knew first how to win me over and then how to inspire me. It helped that we spent as much time outside as inside, going on nature walks and playing in the long garden with its apple and pear orchard and its long grass. Miss Allen was a passionate environmentalist long before that term was widely used."
• "The word 'creative' has become horribly overused but to remember what it really means I need only think of Miss Allen. For her, creativity was not an optional extra, something to be tacked on after you tackled the utilitarian curriculum of reading and writing and maths, but the burning core of both education and life."
• "We learned geography on Miss Allen's magic carpet, which took you to all corners of the globe. you might visit an igloo by crawling under a desk; and then eat whale blubber in the form of nougat. Miss Allen was the opposite of insular."
• "According to a campaign led by the arents, the local authority [in a community which Eyres visited recently, to spend time in their small school] wants to close the school, which consistently scores high marks in assessment exercises. Cost-conscious councils tend to be biased against small schools and to believe they are less "cost-effective" than larger ones."
• "Beyond the hard evidence and the narrow accounting, I would say the value of small schools, both to individuals and communities, might well be incalculable. How can you calculate the benefit of enabling a child to find the bedrock of their future life? And how can you calculate the beneift of an excellent small school to its local community, to which it is fitted as the right species is to its ecological niche?"

Thank you, Harry Eyres, especially for the comments at the end of your article (my last bullet point, above). You sum up our feelings very nicely.

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: [email protected].  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?