School Governance Archive

Welcome to The Leading Source, a weekday blog written by the editors of American School Board Journal. Here you’ll find our take on issues that appear in the magazine, as well as school leadership and general education topics that engage us or pique our interest.

Don’t expect to find a unified voice here: We editors have years of experience covering schools, school boards, and education on a local and national level. That experience has uniquely shaped each of our perspectives, and those perspectives continue to evolve. Each post will be followed by a byline, so you’ll always know the author.

We invite you, our readers, to participate in The Leading Source. If you read a post that you love or hate, agree with passionately or disagree with vehemently, let us know by sending us an e-mail. Your dialog will make our blog richer and more textured. Enjoy.

Kathleen Vail (kvail@nsba.org), ASBJ Managing Editor

What do you call someone with all of the responsibility but none of the power? OK, OK, I shouldn’t have asked a bunch of educators. You can stop raising your hand. I’m looking far west, at the board members of the Oakland Unified School District, who regained some authority earlier this month after having it stripped from them in 2003, as part of a state takeover (see this month’s cover story, “Come Together.”) At the time, the district was $80 million in the red and was, needless to say, in financial jeopardy. It took California officials hardly a beat to seize control of the struggling Bay Area district.

“Oakland’s issue is across-the-board poor achievement levels, however, you want to define that,” School Board President David Kakishiba told me during an interview for the article. What’s more, the school board hadn’t conducted itself so well in the past either, turning board meetings into political circuses. In the four years that they have been under state control, the board has pulled itself together, changed some faces, and proven it has what it takes to usher a troubled school system into a new era. They won’t get the reins back completely, though. Board members will have limited oversight, specifically in the areas of public outreach and policies that address the district’s continual drop in enrollment. Board members also will start collecting a $700 monthly stipend for their work. It’s not everything, but it’s a start.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

No one ever said that life in the public office was easy, but Jean Quan can say it's been easier in city hall than in district headquarters. In the 12 years she'd spent as an Oakland Unified School District board member, Quan had pushed for a number of school reform initiatives and even become somewhat of a fixture on the national education stage; tapped by none other than former President Bill Clinton for a spot on a commission. Yet for all her influence and impact, Quan was ignored, even snubbed in local political circles. It wasn't until she ran and won a seat on Oakland's city council in 2002 that she began to gain the kind of audience she deserved.

"The work I did as a school board member was just as important but school boards ... they don't get much respect," Quan said. "Some of the same people that looked down on me as a school board member respect me as a city council member." Check out more of what Quan has been able to accomplish as a city council member with an education background in this month's cover story (“Come Together”). And lest you think, she's the only one who's gone from the school board to a broader political career, go back and read the Jan. 2006 cover story http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2006/January/DemocracysFirstStepDoc467.aspx. Did you know Jimmy Carter started out as a school board member?

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Paul Vallas wasn’t kidding when he said he would get New Orleans’ residents more involved in their schools—not that we doubted him.

Just a few weeks into his new job, he’s got bigger ideas than bake sales and volunteer tutors. He’s asking community and faith-based groups to propose ways to improve school security and social services.

He’s hoping they’ll tap parents for tasks such as setting up mentoring and after-school programs, serving as truant officers, or monitoring lunchrooms and hallways.

Vallas tried this concept in Chicago and Philadelphia, and he thinks it’s a great way to not only get parents and community members involved in their schools (and get paid) but also for the schools to have some extra helpers who know the neighborhoods. In New Orleans, he says, it’ll also help re-group organizations left scattered after Hurricane Katrina.

I spoke to the fast-talking reformer shortly before he took the helm of the New Orleans Recovery District in June. Our chat, featured as a Newsmaker in the August issue, ranged from political lessons taught by Chicago Mayor Richard Daley to his desire to help N’awlins. (no, he hadn’t gotten the accent just yet).

Later, I spoke with Paul Houston, the retiring executive director of the American Association of School Administrators. Houston noted that Vallas has a lot more riding on this job than rebuilding what has long been one of the nation’s most troubled districts—nationally, administrators will look to him for leadership, and hope, for turning around the toughest districts.

Vallas loves a challenge, though, and we sure wish him well. He’ll need all the help he can find.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Many congrats to our sister blog, BoardBuzz, for winning a Gold Circle Award Honorable Mention by the American Society for Association Executives (ASAE). The blog received Honorable Mention in the News Media Category: Blogs for associations with an annual budget greater than $2 million.

BoardBuzz, if you haven't seen it yet, is the National School Boards Association daily weblog. It's full of news and other items of interest to school leaders. Please check it out at http://boardbuzz.nsba.org/. I know you'll enjoy it.

Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor

For our September “What is Ready?” cover package, the editors of ASBJ interviewed educators, scholars, and researchers about the topic of student readiness for the 21st century. Over the coming weeks, we will post many of those interviews on asbj.com in our “online only” section.

Today, we kick off the series with answers to our questions from Richard Rothstein, the former New York Times education columnist and author of Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. As you might expect from Rothstein, who has contributed a number of articles to our magazine, his answers are provocative and thought-provoking.

Here is an excerpt:

Editors: What is "ready"? What specific skills should students have when they leave high school to enter higher education or the workforce?

Rothstein: This is the wrong -- or at least too narrow -- question. Contemporary education policy places too much emphasis on preparation for higher education or the workforce. Our public education system, historically and today, exists for more than this. Also of great importance is preparation for citizenship, for community responsibility, for good health (physical and emotional), and for adult leisure which benefits from an appreciation of the arts and literature.

For example, for citizenship, what kinds of conflict resolution skills do students have? Do they accept a responsibility to support or dissent from public policies, when appropriate? Can they combine advocacy with respect for differences? For physical health, are they in the habits of regular exercise and good nutrition; do they engage in responsible and safe sexual practices?

A colleague, Rebecca Jacobsen, and I wrote about these multiple goals in the October 2006 issue of the American School Board Journal.http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2006/October/WhatBoardsWantfromSchoolsDoc621.aspx In that article, we described a survey we conducted of a representative sample of NSBA members, confirming that school board members support a broader mission for public education than preparation for higher education or the workforce alone.

For more, go to our “Online Only” section and click on Q&A: Richard Rothstein.

Glenn Cook, Editor-in-Chief

Every few months or so Jamie Vollmer’s “blueberry story” makes the rounds on the e-mail circuit as an inspirational and humorous pick-me-up of sorts for educators feeling under attack.

In short, Jamie tells of his days as a high-profile business executive -- head of a company that became famous for its blueberry ice cream -- who loudly and frequently griped about the quality of public schools and ineptness of educators. But one day when he blasted a group of teachers and school staff for not behaving more like business folk, a sharp-witted teacher promptly tore his case to shreds. [www.jamievollmer.com]

As Jamie become more involved with his local schools, he realized his naïveté and used his humbling experience to start an educational consulting business. He’s now a leading advocate for public education and wants to help corporate types better understand how schools work, and why.

Too often, business leaders expect schools to run just like businesses, he says. But the biggest difference is that while executives can run their companies with little outside input, school superintendents must answer to the school board, parents, business and community leaders, and the public at large. And even if they make all the decisions that a corporate executive would consider correct, they still may lose their jobs.

“This public aspect makes the game fundamentally different,” Jamie says.

Building constructive school-business partnerships can help school leaders not only build better programs but also weather the inevitable politics of the job. But it takes time and effort from both sides, but can be well worth the effort. Read more tips from Jamie and others who’ve done it in my September article, “The Blame Game.”

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

“Good job, Michelle,” Jerry Weast said to the pretty young woman sitting beside him, who had just made her presentation at a Washington, D.C., forum.

If that sounded a tad patronizing, remember that Weast, a grandfather who probably has a good 25 years on Michelle Rhee, is the nationally known superintendent of the Montgomery County (Md.) Public Schools, the nation’s 16th largest.

And Rhee? Well, at the time of this Center for American Progress forum on turning around low-performing schools, she was just weeks into her first job in public education --- chancellor of the troubled District of Columbia Public Schools.

What an entry level job that is!

The enormity of her task is self-evident. While Weast and another veteran, Jack Dale of the Fairfax County (Va.) schools, spoke of helping individual students, Rhee, the neophyte, talked about the need to turn around an entire system. It reminded me of how veteran teachers often gravitate to the suburbs, leaving their rookie peers to fend for themselves in tougher urban schools.

That said, I think Rhee was a brilliant choice by Mayor Adrian Fenty. She’s bright, energetic, self-effacing (she told the forum that she was there to learn as much as anyone) but also tough and focused. As former head of the New Teacher Project, she knows public education but wasn’t in public education. She carries no baggage with the D.C. schools.

Is it naive of her to put the controversial issue of school consolidation near the top of her agenda? Maybe. But Rhee says it’s essential to close some of D.C.’s underused schools: schools of little more than 100 students that are too small to have the kind of enriching activities -- art, music, high-level science -- she said all students deserve. And she plans a comprehensive public relations campaign to get that message out.

I wish her well.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

In the idyllic little village of St. Charles, Ill., school board relations have been anything but idyllic.

For months now, members have argued and fought about everything from alleged backroom politicking to redistricting.

The disagreements have stonewalled district business, polarized board members in the community, and forced the new superintendent (he’s only been in the job since July) to implore the board to stop the pettiness.

“We wouldn’t accept in our classrooms what you accept at this table,” Superintendent Donald Schlomann told the board at a special meeting in late July, convened specifically to help the public officials mend their differences, according to the suburban Chicago newspaper, the Daily Herald (www.dailyherald.com).

Unfortunately the meeting, led by a representative from the Illinois Association of School Boards, didn’t seem to have the intended effect. At one point, the state rep told the board they should all resign “so seven people (who) really care about this district can sit at this table.”

Ouch.

Days later, long-time school board member Chris Hansen did just that, stepping down from his post, conceding that the negative media glare on the board led to his decision. “I don’t want to be the focus and the focus to be on all the negativity,” Hansen told the Daily Herald. “Getting a board member who was on the board during some of these things to step down, that could be a good thing.”

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Margaret Spellings is actually very funny.

The secretary of education had the honor of presenting the 2007 Broad Prize for Urban Education at the Library of Congress on Tuesday, and the woman whom philanthropist Eli Broad described as someone who “will take her place in history as one of the all-time great cabinet members” also proved to have a knack for stand-up comedy.

“As many of you know, the Broad prize is like the Oscar of public education,” Spellings deadpanned. “And I guess this makes you a bunch of glitterati.

Then there was the inevitable: “May I have the envelope, please?” (With the aside, “Wish I was dripping with jewels and a fancy dress.”)

And the winner?

“New York City Department of Education!”

Chancellor Joel Klein accepted the award, and, advancing the celebrity theme, said the work of public education “is not glamorous. And maybe there aren’t a lot of glitterati in this audience, like the Oscars.”

Well, maybe not; but it seemed pretty glittery to me. Mayor Michael Bloomberg made the trip down to help accept the award. General Colin Powell and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi gave luncheon speeches. Former Virginia Governor and current candidate for the soon-to-open Virginia Senate seat Mark Warner attended. And a host of other members of Congress spoke, including California Sen. Barbara Boxer; Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee; and Sen. Ted Kennedy, who remarked that “my niece, Caroline [who has a job raising money for the New York City schools] got down here” and “didn’t tell her uncle” about who had won.

All totaled, I counted at least four people who have either run for president or been mentioned at some point as possible contenders. This is, after all, the year before a pretty big election.

The New York schools were lauded for raising the academic performance of low-income, African-American, and Hispanic students. The four other finalists, who also boasted impressive gains among minorities, were: Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut, Long Beach Unified School District in California, Miami-Dade Public Schools, and the Northside Independent School District in San Antonio.

Congratulations to them all.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

I can’t tell you how much this article disturbed me …… OK I’ll try.

Recently, the Washington Post reported on research concerning our propensity to believe myths or untruths. In fact, not only are we more likely to believe falsehoods that are repeated over and over -- something one would expect -- we’ll believe them even in the face of denials, if those denials involve repeating the original false information. (As in, “I did not kick my dog.” Listener’s translation: “You are a dog-kicker.”)

It seems our minds are quite willing to believe either what we want to believe, or have been told to. And it’s not just silly urban legends: These beliefs have real consequences. As the Post noted, 59 percent of Turks and Egyptians, and 56 percent of British Muslims, believe Arabs were not responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Across the Atlantic, one in three Americans think Saddam Hussein was “personally involved.”

It’s probably obvious why this bothers me, but let me explain. I can’t think of anything that’s more important than the truth. And telling the truth -- or, at least, trying to get the facts straight -- is what journalism is all about. But if our minds are programmed to believe all sorts of fabrications, we reporters have our work cut out for us.

And so do the schools. Have you ever heard someone who had little or no knowledge of public education (and, perhaps, your connection to it) tell you how abysmal, how unsafe, how money-sucking -- whatever -- the schools were? I have. And I wonder how much of that comes from the mark of failure that influential detractors have been able to affix to them.

In his 1981 inaugural address, Ronald Reagan famously declared, “Government is not a solution to our problem. Government is the problem.” Is it any coincidence that two years later a high-level commission would expand on that theme, declaring in A Nation at Risk that, had these government schools been foisted on us by a foreign power, we would consider it “an act of war?”

There are plenty of bad schools out there, but it’s not Canada’s fault. And fixing them will take more than sanctimoniously saying, “It’s the government’s problem.”

That Post article does offer one bit of hope. Not everyone believes the myths. “But the mind’s bias does affect many people, especially those who want to believe the myth for their own reasons, or those who are only peripherally interested and are less likely to invest the time and effort needed to firmly grasp the facts.”

The key, then, is to move the “peripherally interested” into the mainstream -- to show them why they should care about their schools, and learn the truth about them, learn their real problems as opposed to those fabricated by people who may not have the best interests of the public schools at heart.

It will take a lot of effort.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Racism was a largely abstract concept for Gary Hannah for most of his life. He knew it existed. He sensed the influence of racial attitudes and stereotypes on our society. But he'd never confronted it face-to-face in his personal life.

At least, not until a few years ago, when he became principal of H.W. Byers High School in Marshall County, Miss.

That's when this black educator first came into contact with a segment of the population that he'd never before encountered -- poor, working-class whites. These were the kind of whites who generations earlier had joined the Ku Klux Klan. These were the poor farmers and laborers who had once supported Jim Crow so that -- as poor and politically powerless as they were -- they were not at the bottom of the social and economic ladder.

As Hannah tells it, only a few parents revealed their true feelings -- and they never said anything overtly offensive. There were no racial epithets voiced. It was more the attitude of these parents that spoke volumes. It was their sense of silent outrage that they had to deal with a black man in a position of authority.

This week, as I wander Marshall County to research an article for ASBJ, I'm hearing a lot of stories about the role that race plays in the public schools -- ugly stories from decades gone by and uplifting stories of today's hard-working educators. I look forward to sharing more of these stories in the future.

In the end, Hannah's story has a happy ending. A school administrator who knows his business, Hannah did not allow himself to be embittered or distracted by the foolishness of a few ignorant individuals -- instead he has worked to win the confidence of parents and community members. And he appears to be succeeding.

Whether he has won over that handful of parents who initially struggled to accept him . . . that remains anyone's guess.

Be sure to check back in November when my cover article on education and race in rural Mississippi is posted on www.asbj.com.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Educators often see the same trends circle back around every few years or decades. It’s now taken about 80 years for the push for community schools to come back into vogue, but community planners and leaders are realizing that school facilities can play host to many types of activities, for many ages.

Each year, the American Architectural Foundation and the Knowledgeworks Foundation honor a school and community that have built an exemplary example with its Richard Riley Award, named for the former U.S. Secretary of Education. Riley’s pet project since leaving office in 2000 has been facilitating community partnerships and advocating for better school buildings.

This year’s winner is Rosa Parks School at New Columbia Community Campus in Portland, Ore. The campus includes a new K-6 school, Boys and Girls Club, and a community center that offers a variety of classes and programs for non-school-aged residents.

Financing of the project also used a partnership: The campus was built on land donated by the Housing Authority of Portland and construction was paid for with market tax credits, which give investors tax breaks in exchange for a low-income community development project.

And perhaps most impressive, the facility has received a Gold LEED certification for its sustainable design and environmental practices—something that will give back to the community for generations.

For more information about community schools and an update of how schools in New Orleans are being rebuilt as the centerpieces of their neighborhoods, there’s a terrific article in October’s ASBJ written by architect Steven Binger and Martin Blank and Amy Berg from the Coalition for Community Schools. For more information about this school or the award, check out AAF’s website at www.archfoundation.org.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

The nation’s second-largest teacher’s union has just cast its vote for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton as a new poll shows her making some big gains over the other Democrats vying for the nomination.

The American Federation of Teachers chose Clinton after meeting with the seven major Democratic candidates (quick, name all seven!). The AFT executive committee apparently liked her health-care ideas and her statements supporting the usual union priorities, such as right to organize and protection for retirement accounts and pensions. AFT President Edward McElroy said in a press release that the executive committee was impressed with all the candidates, but ultimately decided Clinton was the strongest leader.

“Our members have told us that they want a leader they can trust to strengthen public education, increase access to healthcare, promote common sense economic priorities and secure America’s place in the world,” McElroy said in the press release. “Hillary Clinton is that leader.”

Clinton’s second-closest rival, Sen. Barack Obama, has spoken in favor of merit pay for teachers, an issue the unions aren’t too keen on. Another factor that probably helped the senator from New York is her friendship with Randi Weingarten, the head of New York City’s United Federation of Teachers who’s expected to be the next AFT president.

AFT’s endorsement of Clinton wasn’t her first by far from labor groups, but AFT is one of the first major education associations to wade into the 08 pool. And Clinton will likely pick up more soon if polls continue to place her in the lead nationally, like the one released Oct. 3 by ABC News and the Washington Post.

That poll showed Clinton with a 33-point lead over Obama and gaining ground in nearly every category, most notably in the “electability” realm, which means if primary voters see a candidate as better equipped to win the general election, they’re more likely to vote for him or her. According to the Post: “A clear majority of those surveyed, 57 percent, said Clinton is the Democratic candidate with the best chance on Nov. 4, 2008. The percentage saying Clinton has the best shot at winning is up 14 points since June. By contrast, 20 percent think [John] Edwards is most electable and 16 percent think Obama is, numbers that represent a huge blow to the ‘electability’ argument rivals have sought to use against her.”

The election’s still more than a year away, but stay tuned – we’ll be closely following education and the 08 campaign.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

“Write about my school!” my daughter says, all excited, as I’m trying to get her to bed.

I’ve told her before what I do for a living, but it’s never made quite the impression as right now. Unfortunately, “right now” is nearly 9 p.m. -- way too late for a first grader on a school night -- so I dismiss her suggestion, as parents are prone to do, with an “OK. Sure, I will.”

The next night at dinner, she’s drawing a picture.

“How do you spell ‘elementary?’”

I tell her.

“Three Es?”

“Yes, three Es.”

She gives the crayon drawing to me, and it does indeed look like the entrance to her elementary school in Arlington, Va. Great, I say. I’ll take it to work.

“It’s to remind you to write about my school,” she emphasizes.

I was going to write today about this article in Education Next and its monumentally unfair comparison of -- of all people -- Richard Rothstein, a dogged advocate for poor children, and Charles Murray, co-author of the infamous Bell Curve. See, Ed Next says, they both say there are limits on what schools can do to help the poor, and…. But that can wait. I’ll tell you instead about my daughter’s school, McKinley Elementary, and her first day of kindergarten last year.

Like all parents preparing to enter the world of public education, we were, to put it mildly, nervous. And a lot of our fears were concentrated on the thought of putting our just-turned-5-year-old on that big yellow bus. (Would she be scared? Probably, seeing as how we were reacting.)

The first day came, and it was raining in torrents. But we felt we had to put her on the bus anyway, even though we could have easily driven her. The kindergarten teachers were supposed to ride the buses that day, we reasoned, and if she missed it she might be even more frightened on Day Two.

So there we were -- my wife and I, our elder daughter in her newly purchased raincoat, her then-2-year-old sister in her stroller with the plastic tarp all over it -- trudging through the downpour to the bus stop.

The bus arrived and it was … huge. And, as my daughter gamely stepped on, we realized that she was the only child on the bus, even though it had made at least four stops. Evidently, the other parents had sensibly decided to drive their kids to school.

Oh, and there was no teacher, either. We had it wrong: The teachers were riding the buses home, in the afternoon.

Mr. Jose, the kindly bus driver nearing retirement, could read our faces. He looked down at us, a near-silhouette in the driver’s seat.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll take care of your baby.”

And that was it; the huge yellow bus turned the corner with a roar, and we said goodbye. I can’t adequately describe the emotions I felt at that moment, but I’m sure you can understand. It was a mix of apprehension and pride, a little sadness, and this overwhelming feeling that were joining something much bigger than us.

As school board members, teachers, principals, and administrators, you serve that “something much bigger than ourselves” that is public school. There is no one -- no one -- who has a more important job than you.

You take care of my baby.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

If there’s one good thing President Bush has done, it’s been to turn education into one of the most hotly debated topics of national discourse. Whether you love it or hate it, everyone has an opinion on public schools and how they can be improved, including the candidates vying to be the next president.

Most recently, several have come forward with detailed solutions of their own on how to fix the system. Late last month, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards rolled out an education plan that called for everything from universal preschool to an elite teacher’s college. Edwards stressed improving teacher conditions by providing incentives to those who work in poor areas and focusing federal attention on retaining good teachers.

About a week later, fellow Democratic foe and would-be “education president” Joe Biden unveiled a $30 billion education strategy that would support two years of preschool, two years of college, and a hike in teacher pay. Biden’s plan also provided incentives for teachers working in Title I schools and he supports extending the school day.

Finally, Democrats Bill Richardson and Hillary Clinton focused their proposals on higher education late last week. But while Richardson’s plan was to trade a year of public service for every two years of college for a maximum of $24,000, Clinton offered financial relief by increasing grants and tax credits and making the college financial aid process easier.

Naomi Dillon, Senior Editor

Call me a nerd if you want to, but I really like this book. It’s called The New Meaning of Educational Change, and it’s not exactly beach reading.

I’ll admit I was skeptical -- both (generally) of my upcoming assignment to write about change, and (specifically) of this 338-page tome by Michael Fullan, an emeritus professor at the University of Toronto, which I found using the time-honored research method of typing “educational change” in Google and seeing what came up.

It turns out this is the fourth (!) edition of this same book, hence “new” in the title. It seems the professor has been writing about this subject for some 25 years. Is there really that much to say about change? I thought. Can’t you -- in the immortal words of the philosopher Nike -- “Just do it?”

I was wrong. Far from being irrelevant and “academic” -- in the worst sense of the word -- the book goes to the heart of why schools and school districts have such a hard time with what Fullan calls “innovativeness.”

“We vastly underestimate both what change is … and what factors and processes account for it ...,” Fullan writes early on, and then proceeds to explain why.

All real change, whether voluntary (your new curriculum, perhaps) or involuntary (NCLB), involves what one researcher calls “loss, anxiety, and struggle.” And, thus, ambivalence. The only way change can take hold, Fullan says, is if there is “shared meaning” among all parties involved. In other words, those at all levels, from conception through implementation, must know what problem the proposed change is expected to address, how it plans to do this, how progress will be measured, etc.

Examples abound. For instance, I thought of shared meaning -- or, more precisely, the apparent lack of it -- in relation to NCLB and its provisions for Adequate Yearly Progress. It’s a good bet that the people who thought up AYP did not plan on urban schools trying to achieve it by narrowing their curriculum, cutting out arts and science, and drilling their students relentlessly. But that is what some educators have done. Why? I suspect it’s because they have perceived this change as threatening on a number of levels. The “meaning” for them is much different than it is for the politicians and policymakers.

As Fullan puts it, “meaning” must be fostered in relation to both the “what” and the “how” of change.

“It is possible to be crystal clear about what one wants and totally inept at achieving it,” Fullan writes. “Or to be skilled at managing change but empty-headed about which changes are most needed. To make matters more difficult, we often do not know what we want, or do not know the actual consequences of a direction until we get there.”

Beach reading? Hardly. But a good primer on the kind of groundwork it will take to change America’s schools.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

It’s been more than a week since Utah voters overturned the state’s voucher law, and now that voucher proponents have had a chance to lick their wounds, I’d like to offer them a piece of advice: Give up.

It’s not just that I think vouchers threaten to drain taxpayer dollars from public education, or that I’m concerned that research still hasn’t show voucher programs are any more successful than the public schools in raising student academic achievement.

No, I think voucher advocates should throw in the towel for a more pragmatic—and cynical—reason. Making taxpayer money available to private and parochial schools threatens their unique and independent status in American education.

As I see it, once private schools begin to accept taxpayer money, they’re in trouble. A few headlines about misspent public funds, unsafe school conditions, and biased student admissions policies, and lawmakers will spring into action to “right the wrongs.” Within two decades, private and parochial schools will be as regulated as the public schools.

Some private school supporters already have voiced this warning. But the lure of state and federal dollars is strong. It will be a bitter irony if the voucher movement ever “wins” the fight for taxpayer dollars and destroys private education as we know it.

And, alas, it does damage to public education as well.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

The National Board for Professional Teaching Standards has just announced its largest class ever—8,491 teachers attained certification this year, bringing the total number of NBPTS-certified teachers to more than 63,000.

These teachers should be commended for their work, having passed grueling tests to demonstrate teaching competency through videos and analysis of their instructional methods as well as subject-matter competency. Only about 40 percent of NBPTS candidates pass on the first try, and NBPTS thinks that only about 70 percent pass within the three-year time frame. Most teachers—even those who fail—say it was the best professional development they’ve ever had.

But the story behind this story is that most school districts and school boards do not know how to best use these teachers’ skills. While NBPTS has not kept in touch with its alumni, anecdotal evidence proves that most of the teachers go back to same jobs they had before, with little or no recognition of their accomplishment.

This is a shame. There are so many ways these master teachers, who obviously wanted a challenge, could be put to better use: as lead teachers, mentors, curriculum specialists, or assistant administrators. But school boards and administrators have tended to be oblivious. Researcher Julia Koppich recently told me that in her research school boards “barely registered on the radar screen” and many administrators were overwhelmed or unwilling to find ways to better use these teachers. She found that, surprisingly, the teachers unions were the most important factor in prodding districts to recognize, use, and reward these teachers.

So for any district looking for ideas for policies or practices, I’ve planted a few in the upcoming edition of School Board News (www.nsba.org/site/page_sbn_issue.asp?TRACKID=&CID=682&DID=9461).

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

That observation, often attributed to poet and philosopher George Santayana, needs to be heeded by policymakers in the District of Columbia.

Today, thousands of D.C. students stand on the brink of academic failure—and a future at risk of poverty and diminished opportunities. Yet the city’s adults are squabbling among themselves.

City council members complain they weren’t properly consulted about planned school closings, and parents jeered school officials at a recent public meeting. Meanwhile, D.C. Mayor Adrian Fenty is alienating potential political support for school reform with a combative leadership style.

In a democracy, everyone has a right to debate public policy. But the tone of debate in D.C. has me worried that city leaders have forgotten their history. Political infighting and turf battles have sabotaged every serious school reform effort in the city for the past two decades, leaving the schools to languish and creating a revolving door of school leaders and dashed hopes.

I’m not saying that common sense won’t win out in the nation’s capital. But I think it’s worth pointing out that D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee confronts a daunting task, and quite frankly, she needs to wield a political and administrative sledgehammer if she is to succeed.

The Washington Post had it right in a recent editorial: “Ms. Rhee does not need 13 people telling her which schools to close or whom to hire and fire; rather she needs partners who have a stake in her success and will give her the necessary tools and support.”

That’s good advice—and a similar-worded message should be delivered to community leaders everywhere. Don’t argue about the job—work together to get it done. Our children’s futures are at stake.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Anyone who has ever lived with a 6-year-old has heard these plaintive words: “It’s not fair!”

Therefore, forgive me if I felt less than sympathetic when I heard about a radio ad, sponsored by unions representing employees of the District of Columbia Public Schools, which included those very words. It seemed, well, juvenile.

“The nerve! It’s not fair,” the ad says. “And it’s not what voters trusted [Mayor Adrian] Fenty to do.”

The unions are protesting Fenty’s plan to give schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee the authority to fire “at will” non-union employees at the district’s bloated and dysfunctional central office. The groups have been putting up a fierce fight, running the ad for nearly a week in advance of tonight’s city council vote.

“Have you heard?” the 60-second spot begins. “Reform of the D.C. public schools has been hijacked. Mayor Fenty and his posse of consultants and contractors have hijacked the reform process.”

A process has been hijacked. The horror.

In fairness to the unions, the employees they represent, as well as the non-union central office workers who would be affected, the central office’s problems go way beyond its 914 employees. As an excellent article in the Washington City Paper points out, even exceptional workers are hamstrung by the Byzantine processes and lack of integrative technology at the nine-story headquarters on 825 North Capitol St. (For all you who thought you had troublesome bureaucracies to deal with, “825’s” story is guaranteed to make you feel better. See: www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=34099.)

The D.C. schools have had 10 different leaders in the past 20 years. And long-time employees are understandably worried when yet another manager comes in vowing to clean house. But when some employees refuse to answer their phones, as Rhee testified before council recently, and when one worker is said to have signed in an out at the same time -- presumably to go to another job -- it’s entirely reasonable for Rhee to ask for more authority.

“I don’t think this is necessarily clicking in people’s heads,” Rhee told the City Paper. “If I start firing effective workers, that doesn’t help me. That’s shooting myself in the foot. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not dumb.”

No, actually, the former head of The New Teacher Project seems plenty smart -- and bold, too. Now it’s time for council to give her the tools she needs to do her job.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

It sounded like a nightmare for any administrator: A substitute teacher brings alcohol to school in a coffee mug, becomes intoxicated in front of her students, and has to be removed from the classroom.

Apparently, that’s what happened at an elementary school in New Jersey earlier this month. A fourth-grade sub -- a certified teacher who had worked in the district for over a year -- became visibly intoxicated, fell out of her chair, and threw books as students summoned the principal.

According to Manalapan-Englishtown School Board President Anthony Manisero in the Asbury Park Press (www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712120400), the school’s administrators secured the classroom and had the librarian take over as they called in school counselors and the police, who arrested the 54-year-old teacher. The superintendent immediately wrote a letter to parents of students in that class.

Seems like a reasonable way to handle such a crisis, right? Not if you’d only read the first half of an article in the Asbury Park Press: “Parents of Pine Brook School students said they’re upset at the district’s lack of communication following a teacher’s arrest for drunkenness during class.”

The article quotes just one parent, whose students who were not in the class: “Why did I have to hear it through the rumor mill? … It was just totally handled wrong.”

So apparently the school officials were totally wrong because they did not immediately set the parental rumor mill straight? Fortunately, the district did not take the “no comment” route:

“I feel the people who needed to know found out the information they needed in a very quick and reasonable amount of time… just because some other parent wants to know what went on, I don’t think that’s our role,” said Superintendent John Marciante Jr.

It’s very unfortunate that this happened, but a bad situation was made even worse by a shrill parent and a newspaper that missed the point. While drunken teachers are (hopefully) a rare occurrence, this article at least showed the importance for school officials to explain actions and policies to the community and the media.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

As a highly decorated former Boy Scout, I feel well-qualified to comment on its popular slogan, “Be Prepared,” and its implications for education.

[OK. Full disclosure. I made it to Second Class, somehow earned a “Swimming” merit badge, and was working diligently on “Cooking” at a Missouri Jamboree when I decided that living in sprawling tent cities in the steamy, tick-infested Ozarks woods with thousands of other grimy 11-year-olds wasn’t, well, fun. I can, however, still cook you a mean foil stew.]

But that slogan still resonates. And so does the talk that our scoutmaster, a wonderful, thoughtful man name Mr. Moncrieff, gave about it. He said that being prepared was good, but that he preferred the phrase: “Be Ready.”

Jump ahead to last summer, when our editor-in-chief, Glenn Cook, asked me to do a cover story called “Change Happens.” The idea was that, with all the changes confronting public schools -- from No Child Left Behind to the rapidly changing student demographics -- school board members will have to be prepared.

In doing the story, however, I realized that it was just as Mr. Moncrieff said: The most successful boards hadn’t simply learned to weather change -- to “be prepared,” in Scout jargon -- but they were truly “ready” for this change and were often initiating it and embracing it, despite the fact that all change involves discarding some time-honored traditions and habits and moving into the unknown.

As you can see, “Change Happens” is now up on our website (www.asbj.com). Also, check one of my best sources for the story, the Lighthouse Project of the Iowa School Boards Foundation. (Go to www.ia-sb.org and click on “Member Benefits”), which has been exploring the issues of school leadership and the dynamics of change for the past decade.

Lawrence Hardy, Senior Editor

Maternity leave for high school students? Now that’s a policy issue that I’m certain every school board member is eager to address.

One day you might get your chance. For now, though, it’s the Denver school board that’s being asked by pregnant students to provide them with at least four weeks of maternity leave “so they can heal, bond with their newborns, and not be penalized for unexcused absences.”

That’s how The Denver Post reports it. And, after an initial reaction that varied between “you’ve got to be kidding” and “what’s the world coming to,” I think I see their point.

The Denver Public Schools has no system-wide policy concerning teen moms, the Post reports, and at one high school, students apparently are left with a bad choice: show up at school as soon as they’re out of the hospital—or be docked for unexcused absences.

Now, I don’t think high school students deserve a free pass for having a baby. But, then again, it does no one any good if there’s no accommodation or assistance given to an overwhelmed teen. We don’t need to add to the nation’s appalling dropout rate.

Of course, many schools have a handle on this issue. Some place pregnant students or new moms in specialized programs or run schools designed to work with these students. Others create individualized education plans for new moms or work more informally, bringing counselors, parents, and teens together to work out a reasonable strategy to keep the student in school.

In Denver, a district spokesperson said the district is looking to make its attendance policy “friendlier” to new moms, and school board member Michelle Moss got to the core of the issue: “Clearly, as a district, we have to look at what is going on with our young women. We’ve got to look at the birth-control issue and teen pregnancy and how we best help them deal with it and still graduate.”

That sounds about right. But I hope any policy change avoids the term “maternity leave.” It’s an expression that sounds like an entitlement. And, frankly, anything that makes teen pregnancy and motherhood seem normal and acceptable—as opposed to the personal tragedy it is—just doesn’t sit well.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Did you miss out on ASBJ's "Change Happens and How to Manage It" webinar? No worries -- the webinar has been rescheduled to 3 to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 30.

Based on our January cover story on change, the webinar will feature ASBJ editors discussing ways that school leaders can embrace change and turn it to their advantage.

When you log in, you'll be able to ask questions and take interactive polls that will point out important information about you and your colleagues.

Sign up at www.nsba.org/webchannelNA. All you need is a telephone and an Internet connection.

Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor

Probably not.

My skepticism is based on national statistics that suggest anywhere from 33 percent to 50 percent of new teachers will leave the profession during their first five years on the job.

You’ve heard such numbers before, of course. And you may already have taken steps to address this issue. Every day, I see press releases from school systems announcing initiatives to provide new teachers with mentors, to launch support groups for new hires, or to boost training for first-year teachers.

And those all are steps in the right direction.

But have you taken a serious look at what your district’s efforts? Are administrators making retention a priority? Are these efforts actually making any difference?

You have to wonder. Several organizations have reported in the past year that teacher retention rates continue to slide.

That’s not good. Teacher turnover is a major reason that schools serving disadvantaged students have such high numbers of young and inexperienced new teachers. And it’s a major reason reform efforts fail: How can they succeed if you train a school faculty in a new instructional program—and then half the faculty is replaced with teachers who are unfamiliar with the program?

Meanwhile, school boards are paying through the nose for this turnover—more than $7 billion annually, the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future suggests. The cost of recruiting, hiring, and training a replacement for a lost teacher can range from $4,300 in rural New Mexico to nearly $18,000 in Chicago. (Chicago apparently spends $86 million annually in turnover-related costs.)

If you do look deeper into this issue, be prepared for a shock: You may discover that your schools are giving tenure to some very mediocre teachers—and creating future problems for you—because principals are so desperate just to have a warm body in the classroom.

You also should know that some administrators are becoming resigned to higher turnover rates. At a school I visited last year, a principal told me that he’s quit worrying if new job applicants will have any longevity. “I’m looking,” he says, “for someone who will give me a good two or three years.”

Del Stover, Senior Editor

How much work do you put into building a healthy relationship with your teachers’ union?

For an April ASBJ article on unions, I recently examined labor-management relationships across the nation and—and reaffirmed what experts have said for years: How well school boards and unions get along is as much about the people involved as it is about the issues.

Let’s face it: Some school board members just don’t like unions—or their union leader-ship. Others prefer to keep their distance and let the superintendent take the lead when it comes to the union.

I think that’s a mistake. Certainly you don’t want to intrude on specific matters best handled by the superintendent or through the collective bargaining process.

But, as one union leader suggested, school board members "need to establish a relationship with local teacher association leaders. There’s a lot of us-versus-them mentality out there. But sometimes, on both sides of the fence, quite honestly, we need to be working a lot more on relationship building and trust building."

If you think about it, that makes good sense. The more people know about one another, the more likely that trust and understanding can be fostered. That can make a huge difference when the next round of contract talks begins—and some difficult issue arises.

Wishful thinking? I don’t think so. Sure, there are union leaders out there who are stub-born, difficult, and embrace the us-versus-them militancy that plague some school systems.

The same can be said for some school board members, too.

And it can’t hurt to try. I talked to one school system where school board members and the union president meet one-on-one occasionally over a cup of coffee—just to stay in touch . . . just to share their thoughts and dreams for the school system and its children. It seems to work for them.

In fact, it sounds exactly how school board members take a leadership role in their school system. Which suggests that it’s time for you to pick up the phone—and invite someone out for coffee.

Del Stover, Senior Editor

Think you could survive 50 years--a half century--as president of your school board?

In Northeast Ohio, Richard A. Moss has already passed that mark. He’s been at the helm of the 1,430-student Cardinal Local School Board since the year the Ford Edsel made its debut.

Moss, who’s profiled in the April issue of ASBJ, is believed to be the longest serving school board president in the country. And during many of those years he worked two jobs—full time as a postal carrier and part time for the local telephone company. On weekends he also mowed grass and tended the local football field.

He’s dealt with everything from budgets woes to forced consolidations, building schools to figuring out what to do with vacant buildings and everything in between. A school board member who’s going to last more than one term, he says, is someone who embraces all the intricacies of the job, not someone who runs on a single-issue platform or has an ax to grind with other members or administrators.

Moss was kind enough to share some of his wisdom and lessons learned with me a few weeks ago, in between physical therapy sessions. His secret to making the job manageable is hiring a good superintendent and good administrators who can oversee the daily operations of the schools. He’s worked with six superintendents who’ve stayed from two to 23 years.

But the sharp-minded 91-year-old is stepping down later this year—he’s decided it’s time to take a break and let someone younger have the job.

Joetta Sack-Min, Associate Editor

I just finished reading Jodi Picoult’s book, Nineteen Minutes. If you have anything to do with education, or if you’re a parent, you need to read this book -- now.

Picoult’s 2007 bestseller chronicles a horrific school shooting incident and its aftermath. A meticulous researcher, Picoult imbues the shooter, a brutally bullied boy named Peter, with a sense of humanity that seems almost impossible, especially considering that he goes to school one day and guns down 10 classmates.

The hardest parts of the book to read were the passages about Peter’s relentless torment at the hands of his fellow classmates, starting in the first day of kindergarten when one of them throws his Superman lunchbox out of the school bus window. In fact, I wanted to skip those passages entirely.

In this impulse, I’m like most adults, probably. We don’t want to believe our children are capable of this cruelty, so we look away.

Of course, it is happening. Read the recent New York Times article, “A Boy the Bullies Love to Beat Up, Repeatedly,” about a young man in Fayetteville, Ark. Elements of his daily torture were sickeningly similar to the fictional Peter’s abuse.

In an interview with ASBJ in January, Picoult said: “As a mom, I saw all three of my kids face bullying—and it begged the question: In a post-Columbine world, why haven’t we figured this out yet?

School officials will point to their bullying policies, of course, and every district should have them. But these policies are a starting point, not the end. During the shooter’s trial at the end of Nineteen Minutes, the defense lawyer memorably demonstrates why. No matter how air-tight your policy is, it’s utterly meaningless when adults -- whether they secretly identify with the bullies, they not-so-secretly don’t like the bullied child, or because it reminds them too much of their own childhood torment -- turn the other way when a child desperately needs help.

Is bullying occurring in your schools? Are you willing to take a hard look – and not turn away if you see something that makes you uncomfortable, if you see something you know is wrong?

The bullied kids can’t look away. They live with this every day. If you don’t protect them, no one will.

Why haven’t we figured this out yet?

Kathleen Vail, Managing Editor

More than a few school board members offer the opinion that teacher contracts are a major impediment to school reform.

But is that true? Union leaders argue just the opposite in “State of the Unions,” the April cover story of American School Board Journal.

Indeed, National Education Association President Reg Weaver puts it quite colorfully when responding to complaints that teacher contracts add unnecessary costs to school budgets and create bureaucratic obstacles to reform.

“That’s crap,” he says.

The truth, as usual, is much more nuanced.

Take tenure rules. Yes, some contracts make it incredibly time-consuming and expensive to fire a bad teacher.

Then again, I’m still waiting for school board members to explain why their school system gives tenure to these poor-performing teachers in the first place.

School board members also are correct that seniority rules make it too difficult to transfer the best teachers to where they’re needed.

But union leaders are equally correct in arguing that assigning teachers where they may be resentful or unhappy is no formula for success. It isn’t going to help teacher retention rates, either.

Finally, it’s also true that collective bargaining agreements hinder innovation and creative solutions by restricting administrators’ leeway on such things as scheduling after-hours training, for example.

But union officials have a point when they argue that contract agreements sometimes save school boards from making hasty and costly policy mistakes, and that such agreements help avoid the policy churn that might follow with the rapid turnover of board members.

So what’s my point? It’s a bit simplistic to put too much blame on collective bargaining and teacher contracts.

It’s also pointless. Collective bargaining is here to stay.

So here are some questions for school boards: How often do you meet with your union’s leadership to talk about common goals? Do you seek solutions to problems as they arise? Or do you wait until the pressures of contract talks before addressing an issue?
And how good a horse trader are you? If you want something in the contract changed, do you offer a tangible benefit for a serious concession? Do you lay out the data to prove that change is good for students—and, thus, for teachers?

Maybe your school board is hampered by contract language. Maybe your union leadership is militant and difficult to work with. I won’t say you’re wrong.

But, then again, it might be worth rethinking how you go about working with your union. There may be more opportunities there than you imagine.

Del Stover, Senior Editor