Generations at School

J a n u a ry 2 0 1 0E S S E n T I a L I n S I G H T S a n D CO M M E n Ta ry F O r S C H O O L SyST E M L E a D E r S

Punchback: Combating Rumors • A Superintendent’s Wellness Manifesto • Defining ‘Sacrifice’

Bringing cohesion among Millennials, Gen X, Boomers Generations at School

Strengthen your foundation with fresh knowledge and new connections from nationally recognized thought leadersGeoffrey Canada, president and chief executive offi cer, Harlem Children’s ZoneAnthony Jackson, executive director, Asia Society’s International Studies Secondary Schools Network Diane Ravitch, research professor of education, New York University, and senior fellow, Brookings InstitutionAnd others

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New for 2010! Innovation is the cornerstone of your career The AASA District and School Showcase Pre-ConferencePersonal accounts from 18 high-achieving school districts and schools where the superintendent and local school staff have been recognized for overcoming challenges, leveraging resources and raising student achievement to the next level. To register for this event, you must also register for the full conference.

See which solid concepts still stand the test of time, and build new skills you can put to use immediatelyFour streamlined focus zones for superintendents, aspiring leaders and cabinet-level staff:Executive Leadership, Student Achievement, Board/Superintendent Issues, District Management

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New for 2010! Innovation is the cornerstone of your career The AASA District and School Showcase Pre-ConferencePersonal accounts from 18 high-achieving school districts and schools where the superintendent and local school staff have been recognized for overcoming challenges, leveraging resources and raising student achievement to the next level. To register for this event, you must also register for the full conference.

See which solid concepts still stand the test of time, and build new skills you can put to use immediatelyFour streamlined focus zones for superintendents, aspiring leaders and cabinet-level staff:Executive Leadership, Student Achievement, Board/Superintendent Issues, District Management

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The School Administrator (ISSN 0036-6439) is a benefit of membership in the American Association of School Administrators, 801 N. Quincy St., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22203-1730. Telephone: 703-875-0772. Fax: 703-528-2146. Annual membership dues in the association are $403 (active members), of which $40 covers a subscription to The School Administrator. The School Administrator is published monthly except July. Send address changes to AASA, Membership Division, 801 N. Quincy St., Suite 700, Arlington, VA 22203-1730. Copyright 2010 by AASA. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A.

J A N u A R y 2 0 1 0 • N u M B e R 1 V O L . 6 7

28 A Superintendent’s Manifesto: School Wellness and Personal Health

B Y M A R S H A L . C A R R - L A M B E RT

While recognizing her own unhealthy eating habits, the author thought to herself, “How could we harangue children about the dangers of sodas … when as adults we modeled the exact opposite?” The superintendent then became a role model for promoting wellness in her 2,000-student school system in West Virginia.

32 A Minimalist Approach to Reform

B Y A N N E E . C O N Z E M I U S

A smart, sane and strategic route focuses principals and teachers on fewer high priori-ties. But the central office needs to let site leaders know which things are OK to let go.

35 Pareto principle in education

10 Generations at School: Building an Age-Friendly Workplace

B Y S U Z E T T E L O V E LY

If professional learning communities are the engine of quality work, school leaders face a daunting task: How do you bring about cohesion among groups of staff members who don’t see eye to eye owing to their generational differences? The author, a central-office administrator in California, shows us how this plays out in everyday school situations.

13 Ray McNulty on generation gaps in technology 14 Lynne Lancaster on 24/7 connection needs

of Millennials

18 Meet Mr. and Mrs. Gen X: A New Parent Generation

B Y N E I L H O W E

Generation Xers have been taking over the parent ranks in K-12 education from Baby Boomers, and they are bringing with them a high level of customer-service expectations, strong self-interest and a willingness to apply stealth-fighter tactics. The author, an authority on generational differences, shares his strategies for how schools can adjust to this broad shift in generational attitudes and priorities.

20 The lineup of generations

24 Autonomy for School Leaders B Y J A M E S E C K A N D B RYA N G O O D W I N

So how much autonomy should superintendents give principals, and how much is too much? The authors report on some relevant findings in research by McREL, a federal research lab, that may answer this question.

18

10

DePARtMeNtS AASA INSIGHt43 PReSIDeNt’S CORNeRIs It Time To Pick Up the Pace?B Y M A R K T. B I E L A N G

Just as long-distance runners need to know when to slow it down or kick it up a notch, so too must public school leaders know how to adjust the pace toward reaching a destination successfully.

44 eXeCutIVe PeRSPeCtIVeInformed by Sicilian and Maltese EducatorsB Y D A N I E L A . D O M E N E C H

In pursuit of solutions, AASA’s executive director joined other U.S. educators overseas as part of the latest International Invitational Seminar on Schooling. He shares a few thoughts about things he witnessed that could have application in the United States.

40 The English Problem in the Digital AgeB Y M A R K B AU E R L E I N

As hand-held devices “have descended like an avalanche into young people’s lives,” the author of The Dumbest Generation urges educators to resist calls to further digitalize reading and writing in K-12 education. The troubling impact on his college-level English classes has been pronounced.

46 ReSOuRCe BANKA doctoral dissertation studies the paucity of Latino superintendents. New resources include the final edition of the “Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education” and a report on the use of scientific evidence in education decisions.

47 BOOK ReVIeWS Reviews of nine book titles: Delivering on the Promise; Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives; A Game Plan for Effective Leadership; Having Hard Conversations; Instructional Rounds in Education; Millennials and K-12 Schools; Never Too Old to Teach; Reforming Boston Schools, 1930-2006; and Why Don’t Students Like School?

50 PeOPLeA rundown of superintendent appoint-ments, retirements and deaths in recent months.

51 PROFILeAntoinette Cavanaugh grew up in a broken home on an Indian reservation in the same sprawling Nevada school district that she now leads as superintendent.

52 LeADeRSHIP LIteOne young pupil has the bedtime formula mastered for pulling off a snow day.

toolkit: Military KidsWith some 2 million school-age children having had a parent deployed to war since 2001, AASA has developed a new online toolkit that will help educators serve these youngsters.

The toolkit covers 15 things school leaders can do to support military children. The new resource also provides an update on federal impact aid and the Interstate Compact on Educational Opportunity for Military Children.

Also available is a video discussion among school administrators on how schools can support military children. Both are accessible at www.aasa.org/MilitaryChild.aspx.

GueSt COLuMNS37 Defining the Word ‘Sacrifice’B Y G A RY A . B U RT O N

The word is common to many conversations these days. The author, a veteran superintendent, proposes the notion of “shared sacrifices” as a defining moment for school leaders to clearly explain what they are willing to give up, even as they ask local residents to continue their support.

38 Practicing 21st-Century Skills Back in the ’80sB Y N A N C Y W I N G E N B A C H

The promotion of 21st-century learning skills — creativity, innovation, collabora-tion — isn’t anything new to this author, who has found them all applied among students for years in an extracurricular pro-gram known as Destination ImagiNation. Now a superintendent, she’s been an active player since serving as a volunteer for the competition more than 25 years ago.

4 LetteRSGene Glass’ Punchback column in October about New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman drew reactions from our readers, as did our coverage in September of the self-imposed barriers of aspiring female superintendents.

5 eDItOR’S NOteWho is the generational expert behind our cover story on how these differences play out in the schoolhouse?

6 PuNCHBACK: ANSWeRING CRItICS Combating the Rumor Mill Through a GrapevineB Y L . O L I V E R R O B I N S O N

To address wild claims and half-truths about the schools, a suburban district near Albany, N.Y., launched a public blog of its own with regular input from the superintendent to provide factual answers. The ultimate feature — anonymity — allows individuals to feel comfortable directly addressing the establishment.

8 BOARD-SAVVy SuPeRINteNDeNtLessons From History About RealityB Y N I C K C A R U S O

When the author trains school board members, he starts with a three-question quiz to show how we often allow myths to guide us in our decision making about effective practices and progressive policies. It’s a trap that can be avoided.

52

L E T T E R S

EditorJay P. Goldman

Managing EditorElisabeth Griffin

SEnior EditoriaL aSSiStantFrancesca Duffy

dESign dirEctionMelissa Kelly, Auras Design

HOWTOREACHUS

Editorial Submissions: Query letters and articles relating to school system leadership are welcome. Author guidelines are available on the magazine’s website.The School Administrator801 N. Quincy St., Suite 700Arlington, VA 22203-1730Tel: 703-875-0772; Fax: 703-841-1543E-mail: [email protected]: www.aasa.org

Letters to the Editor: Letters commenting on arti-cles appearing in previous issues may be submitted to the editor for consideration. Letters may be edited for clarity and length.

Change of address: AASA members can report changes of address by phone (703-875-0748), fax (703-841-1543) or e-mail ([email protected]).

Back Issues: Single copies are $9 for AASA members and $10 for nonmembers. Bulk rates are available. Orders must be prepaid. To order, call 703-875-0772.

article archives: Past issues can be accessed at www.aasa.org. Articles are also available through these document services: EBSCO (www.epnet.com), H.W. Wilson (www.hwwilson.com), ingenta (www.ingentaconnect.com), ProQuest (www.pro-quest.com) or Cengage (www.gale.com). Microfilm and microfiche are available from ProQuest (800-521-0600).

reprints and Permissions: Quality reprints of articles can be ordered in quantities of 100 or more. To order, call 703-875-0772. Requests for permission to reproduce or distribute copies of an article for academic or professional purposes should be submitted in writing to the editor.

advertising Inquiries: For media kits and other advertising information, contact Brett Gold-fine, Account Executive, SAGE Publications, 415 Horsham Road, Horsham, PA 19044. Tel: 215-675-9133, ext. 226; e-mail: [email protected].

The views expressed in The School Administrator do not necessarily reflect AASA policy nor does acceptance of advertising imply AASA endorsement.

Mission Statement: The American Association of School Administrators’ mission is to support and develop effective school system leaders who are dedicated to the highest quality public educa-tion for all children.

dispelling disinformationI had not seen the word “bamboozled” in print for a long time. Gene V Glass used it twice in his Punchback column “Dispelling a Prize-Winner’s Disinforma-tion” (October 2009), where he offers a countering opinion to Thomas L. Fried-man, The New York Times’ Pulitzer Prize-winning op-ed columnist.

In Friedman’s column “Swimming Without a Suit,” which ran April 21, 2009, he states America was “not a nation at risk. We are a nation in decline,” referring to the public school system. Glass suggests the amount of disinformation being circulated through such writing “is endemic in today’s sharply politicized society.” He adds: “It’s not just think-tank policy briefs that need close monitoring, but communications on education of many sorts.” Friedman, he claims, relied on disinformation to reach his conclusion. I agree.

I am a doctoral student in education at Pepperdine University in Southern California. I didn’t come to the program through traditional means like most of my peers who started their careers in teach-ing. I’m considered a person in transition, someone with an MBA in systems man-agement and 20 years of philanthropic work in education.

A year into my studies, I’m still absorb-ing Dewey, Schein and other theorists, and learning about the state of schooling from what I read in The School Adminis-trator. Of one thing I am certain: There are countless dedicated, caring and selfless public school educators tirelessly working to reverse the supposedly declining Ameri-can public school system that Friedman and others ding.

Twice a week I volunteer at a K-6

public school in Los Angeles, where I work with outstanding 1st- and 3rd-grade teachers. Despite parental disinterest, economic cutbacks and system obstacles, these teachers manage to educate inner-city children every day in overcrowded, mismanaged and underfunded schools.

Is the public school system perfect? Not at all. Yet we must combat the endemic disinformation problem, as Glass suggests. I will share the websites listed in his col-umn with the teachers and administrators where I volunteer as well as with my fel-low doctoral students and professors.

CAROLYN HARRISONDoctoral Candidate,

Pepperdine University,Los Angeles, Calif.

I want to thank Gene Glass for his out-standing Punchback column, “Dispelling a Prize Winner’s Disinformation.” I hope he’ll send it on to our governor and our state superintendent of public education in Indiana, both of whom continue to try to move us to a market system of educa-tion using statistics like those Glass men-tions. Maybe it would be a good idea to send Glass’ commentary to our national leaders, as well.

I wrote a book a couple of years ago, Whose Business Is School Reform? (Rowman and Littlefield Education) that says much of the same things.

Unfortunately, most of our citizens in this country find it difficult to understand the statistics used to report on standard-ized testing of students. Even though the research is not conclusive about early childhood education, it remains the most promising hope for helping certain groups of kids to improve achievement. Unfor-

F L A S H B A C K : j A N U A R y 2 0 0 5

(an occasional feature reconnecting readers with the magazine’s subjects and individuals from 5, 10, 15 or 20 years earlier)

Gerry House, Rosa Smith and Rossi Ray-Taylor, all former superin-tendents in ethnically diverse communities, contributed substantive articles on the cover theme — addressing the particular needs of black boys in school. … Gary Mathews’ Focus article on personnel evaluation described self-led principal conferences. … Lane Mills’ Tech Leadership column was titled “Read Any Good Technology Policies Lately?” … Profile subject: Ray Daniels, superintendent, Kansas City, Kan. … AASA President Donald Kussmaul mused about what sort of education leaders Gen-X members would make.

4 T H E S C H O O L A D M I N I S T R AT O R J a n u a ry 2 0 1 0

L E T T E R S E D I T o R ’ S N o T E

tunately, too many in this country equate achievement with how well one can do on a standardized test, something we know is tightly correlated to genetics and exposure to language at a very early age.

I hope Glass, along with Alfie Kohn, Sir Ken Robinson and Richard Rothstein, will carry on the mantel of the late Gerald Bracey, a hero to public educators, in get-ting this message out.

ROBERT BROWERSuperintendent,

North Montgomery Community Schools,Crawfordsville, Ind.

Shortchanging Boys Janet Mulvey’s observations in “Femi-nization of Schools” (September 2009) on the way that we educate boys in our schools are right on target. The issues she raises and the suggestions she makes for improvement have been rattling around in my head for the past 20 years, but she eloquently put them down on paper.

In 1969, when I started teaching high school math in a small town in Kansas, I encountered the same issues, except the group being left behind at that time was our girls in math and sciences. As I finished my 35 years in public education as a principal, director of curriculum and superintendent, I saw clearly that while we have addressed the problems in one area, we have left behind the young boys, and they are falling further behind.

I’ve been retired for five years, but I continue to follow the issues in our schools and what is happening to our children because I still want to see our schools as places where all children have an oppor-tunity to excel. Also, with three grandsons entering school, I do not plan to sit on the sidelines and allow their educations to suffer.

Thanks to Mulvey for clearly articulat-ing a major problem and the solutions to that problem. I hope our colleagues at all levels of education listen to her and make the needed changes.

STEPHEN R. MORRISONRetired Superintendent,

Silver Creek, Colo.

Letters should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 801 n. Quincy St., Suite 700, arlington, Va 22203 Fax: 703-528-2146 E-mail: [email protected]

Clash of the GenerationsThe author of this month’s cover story, Suzette Lovely, took interest in the

subject she addresses after reading Generations at Work by Ron Zemke and a few other works on the same theme, but found nothing specific to generational

conflict in the schoolhouse. That led Lovely, a central-office administrator in California overseeing person-

nel issues, to begin writing (for us and other publications) about applying gen-erational intelligence to K-12 education, especially collaboration among school staff, as the professional learning community movement gained momentum. “My specific focus was helping educational leaders recognize and capitalize on genera-tional diversity in their workplace,” she says.

Lovely’s article, “Generations at School: Building an Age-Friendly Workplace” (page 10), offers some guidance on building cohesion among the varying habits and outlooks of the Gen Xers, Millennials and Baby Boomers who populate the school ranks today.

We also are offering an excellent article (“Meet Mr. and Mrs. Gen X”) by Neil Howe (page 18), one the acknowledged authorities on the subject of generational differences. Howe, who will speak at AASA’s national conference next month, shares practical measures for dealing with the expectations and self-interest of the current generation of parents with children in the schools.

No doubt, you’ve noticed these differing habits among the ages in your school district’s workforce. I encourage you to share your reactions with us.

Jay P. GoldmanVoice: 703-875-0745E-mail: [email protected]

“Burton, that’s a book. You open it, you don’t turn it on.”EDIT

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J a n u a r y 2 0 1 0 T H E S C H O O L A D M I N I S T R A T O R 5

Chatter among parents on the sidelines of youth soccer games. Comments traded in the aisles of the grocery store.

People constantly share their opinions about the local schools. Unfortunately, many of their

comments are half-truths or even flat-out inaccuracies. What goes on in our community is no different than what goes on in your community.

The problem is this: Misinformation and unfounded rumors about the schools tend to be considered more credible within the community, drowning out the official reports issued by the school district. The issues range from the inconsequential to the seriously detrimental. The rumor in our community about the supposed district policy to allow elementary and middle school students

to purchase coffee got parents so worked up that some compiled medical research to march on the school board meeting in protest.

Speedy SpreadWhile Shenendehowa, a suburban school com-munity near Albany, N.Y., is fairly large, rumors spread at lightning speed. Constantly hearing the chatter, I’m convinced people don’t always know what is factual, nor do they know who to contact for accurate information. Granted, our district has multiple methods of communication, including newsletters and a well-maintained website, yet the rumor mill dominates the communication stream.

So how do we best educate our community, making a complex organization of 10,000 students and 1,800 employees understandable to the typical layperson or even the most involved school district employee? Few community members realize how many decisions are based on board of education policy, federal laws and state regulations, and con-tractual obligations.

In 2008, partly out of frustration and partly out of pro-fessional obligation to communicate more effectively, the Shenendehowa district launched a web log called Heard It Through the Grapevine. This was an effort to provide people with a place to get answers to questions and to address rumors and wild claims that had no basis in fact.

In doing so, the Grapevine provided the ultimate fea-ture — anonymity — so individuals could feel comfort-able directly addressing the source without any concern about “asking a stupid question” and, even more critically, could do so without repercussions for expressing a dissent-ing point of view or for questioning the establishment.

The Grapevine is best described as a pseudo-blog, because it is not necessarily live and not all questions are published on the site and addressed. Questions submitted to the Grapevine go to the district’s public information

officer, who determines which district administrator can best answer them. Then the appropriate responses are posted, typically within 24-48 hours.

When the site was launched, some staff members expressed concerns about staff and student privacy. They felt more comfortable when they realized not all questions are answered, and comments about specific employees may not be answered and, if they are, the staff member’s name is removed.

Personal attacksOf course, at times it is hard not to take some criticisms personally, particularly when someone questions with-out warrant the integrity of school personnel or makes statements that blatantly indict the judgment of a deci-sion, often in a condescending or sarcastic way. So, as a practice, we try to keep our answers straightforward and objective, citing policies, laws or regulations when relevant. At times, we simply explain our decision and state we agree to disagree, but at least the questioner understands how or why a particular decision was made.

The public has become increasingly accustomed today to immediate communication. Consequently, it is impor-tant that the district explore every new technological tool that emerges to communicate with the public to ensure we are the first and best source of information.

Like Facebook and Twitter, two resources Shenende-howa is exploring, the Grapevine blog is another com-munication tool to help reach out and inform our com-munity. The new social media allow people to inform us about what they want to know. We now have true two-way communication across the board.

Judging by the response, the Grapevine has been a huge success. It has reduced the number of calls the dis-trict gets from the media, as reporters can investigate a story from the “media tip line.” The district has the ability to be the first, best and fastest source of information to the public. Since its launching, the number of unique visitors to the Shenendehowa Central Schools’ website has increased from 10,000 to 38,000 per month. The Grapevine blog itself receives 15,000 visits per month, and we answer approximately 250 questions each month.

Now when staff members are asked to address a ques-tion posted on the blog, they announce they have been “grapevined!” Similarly, it is not uncommon to overhear someone in the grocery store checkout line say they “heard it through the Grapevine.” Accessible from our home page at www.shenet.org, the Grapevine last year received the National School Public Relations Associa-tion’s Golden Achievement Award.

oliver robinson is superintendent of Shenendehowa central Schools in clifton Park, n.Y. E-mail: [email protected]

Combating the Rumor Mill Through a GrapevineB y L . O L I V e R R O B I N S O N

P U N C H B A C K : A N S W E R I N G C R I T I C S

“ … our district has multiple methods of communication, including news-letters and a well-maintained website, yet the rumor mill dominates the communication stream.”


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Lessons From History About RealityB y N I C K C A R u S O

I recently read an interesting book by David Hackett Fischer titled Washington’s Crossing, part of the Oxford University series called Pivotal Moments in American History. It’s a thoroughly researched description of the events surrounding the surprise attack on the Hessian

garrison at Trenton, N.J., in December 1776.What surprised me as I read this book was how many

myths I had been exposed to as a child and believed to be true. Much of what we were taught about those times never happened. I use this book with school boards to lead discussions during training sessions regarding public education and decision making. During my presentation I give them a quick quiz.

I start with a sample. We all have seen the movies where the British soldiers are aligned in row upon row while their officers yell out the commands, “Ready, aim, fire!” The first myth I discovered was that in the British Manual of Arms of 1774, there was no command for aim. All those years of cinematic excitement are pure fiction.

The three questions I ask the board members are these:Question 1: In the famous painting by Emanuel

Leutze, Washington and his troops are shown stand-ing up in their boat. My recollection from grade school was that this was a representation and that due to the fact they crossed the Delaware River during a nor’easter, there was no way they would be standing up, but instead would be stationed down below the gunwales of the boat for protection from the wind, rain and snow. True or false?

Question 2: The reason Washington was able to sneak up on the Hessians on Christmas Day was because the Germans were hung over from too much celebrating on Christmas Eve. True or false?

Question 3: The Continental Army of 1776 was the most literate army in history at that point in time. True or false?

a common trapAs we often think of history through the myths that develop over time, so too unfortunately do we allow myths to guide us in our decision making when it comes to our job of improving teaching and learning.

Whether it is about the ability of children to learn based on demographics or family involvement or how to judge effective teaching practices, we often make our decisions based on what we believe to be true, rather than data. Too often, when we apply data to the problem, we find out we were wrong. This is a trap educators often fall into. Even experienced teachers often base their teach-ing practices on what they believe, rather than what the data show.

Your board of education is probably used to making decisions the same way, and it is up to you to ensure the

decisions it makes will really have an impact or student achievement. It is up to the superintendent to ensure that board decisions, and decisions of the rest of the district are made using research and facts. That stipulation also may bring you out of your own comfort zone.

We could easily substitute our quiz with statements like “Poor children can’t learn at the same rate as wealthy children” or “A good teacher knows when her students get it” or, worst of all, “The teacher did all he could to help the child. It’s not his fault that the child couldn’t learn the material.”

I am part of the Iowa School Boards Foundation’s Lighthouse Research Project, which looks at how boards (and districts) can make better decisions based on data. I will cover this in a future column, but I will say that this research has exposed similar myths in education to those I discovered by reading Washington’s Crossing.

The fact is, we know better. It is up to you to work with board members to dispel the myths and ensure that teaching and learning in your school district are guided by reality, not what we believe to be the truth.

Quiz answersNow, on the answers to the history questions I administer at school board training sessions.

Question 1: False. The troops all stood. The boats were full of ice and water, and the men would have frozen if they sat in it. Also, the boats were mostly river freighters and had higher sides and wider beams, so it was possible to stand and not be totally exposed to the elements or to worry about tipping over the boats.

Question 2: False. For weeks the Germans knew Wash-ington was somewhere loose in New Jersey, but with no pilotless drones or satellite imagery, they had no idea where he and his troops were. While they were waiting, small bands of militia would sneak up to the German lines and fire a few volleys at the defenders and then run off. Each time this occurred, the Hessian officers, fearing this was “The Big One,” would call out the entire garrison to arms where they would stand for hours, ready for the attack that never came. These small attacks took place constantly during the days preceding the epic battle. The Hessians were incapacitated, not by alcohol, but by sheer exhaustion.

Question 3: True. The Continental Army, an all-vol-unteer army composed of farmers, merchants, artisans, doctors and lawyers had a literacy rate of approximately 80 percent according to Fischer (though I’ve read other reports that dispute that number).

nick caruso is senior staff associate for field services with the connecticut association of Boards of Education in Wethersfield, conn. E-mail: [email protected]

B o A R D - S A V V y S U P E R I N T E N D E N T

“even experi-enced teachers often base their teaching practices on what they believe, rather than what the data show.”


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S uperintendent Anne Smith is aghast at the flip-flops, halter tops and tattoos streaming into her school district’s New Teacher Breakfast. One teacher no sooner sits down before “The Brady Bunch” theme song pierces the room. “Hi, Mom!”

the teacher gushes into her cell phone. In another corner, a male teacher with two black ear-

lobe plugs is texting away. He barely looks up to answer a question from his principal, who happens to be sitting next to him.

The superintendent leans over to the assistant superin-tendent of personnel and whispers, “I didn’t realize we’d done our recruiting this year at the Santa Monica Pier.” The 45-year-old assistant superintendent glances around the room quizzically. “Oh. I hadn’t even noticed,” she replies. “Most of our teachers come to work dressed this way. We hardly think twice about it anymore.”

In schools around the country, Gen Xers, Millennials, Baby Boomers and even a Veteran or two are working side by side. While anyone holding a job in this shaky economy is grateful, gratitude doesn’t make generational

Generations at school:

if professional learning communities are the engine of quality work, finding cohesion among groups that don’t see eye to eye is the daunting task at hand

B y S u Z e t t e L O V e L y

Building an Age-Frıendly Workplace


; C O V E R S T O R Y

clashes less difficult. Adding to the mix, many Baby Boomers initially poised for a mass exodus by 2010 are holding on for dear life. With a “spend now, pay later” attitude, many Boomers hadn’t saved enough for retire-ment even before the financial meltdown.

Composing 38 percent of the workforce, older teachers crowd out younger ones, making coveted jobs even harder to come by. Christine Nelson, a 58-year-old teacher from Indialantic, Fla., told USA Today she had planned to retire at age 62. But now she intends to work until age 65 or 66. Nelson says her salary has been frozen for two years and the tax-sheltered annuities she’d been counting on have plummeted. “If I have to work in retirement, at least it’s doing something I love to do. … I’m not going to complain,” Nelson said.

While Nelson’s decades of experience might be good for students, it’s not necessarily good for a school dis-trict’s bottom line. Older teachers are more expensive. Decreasing revenues coupled with spiraling payroll costs makes for a grim situation in many of the nation’s school districts.

Setting the tempoAlthough there are no hard-and-fast rules about where one generation ends and another begins, four milestones provide a benchmark:

l If you remember V-J Day, you’re probably a Veteran. l If you remember the day President Kennedy was

assassinated, you’re a Baby Boomer. l If you watched the Challenger disaster on a class-

room TV, you’re a Gen Xer. l If Columbine and 9/11 are etched in your memory

from adolescence, you’re a Millennial. Some wonder why they should be concerned with the

obvious reality that schools are filled with people from mixed generations. Haven’t we always struggled to get along? The fact of the matter is that professional learning communities are now the engine of high-quality work. Sustaining cohesion among groups that don’t readily see eye to eye is a daunting task, since collaboration doesn’t come naturally to most educators.

The style and customs of younger workers also can become a source of tension for Baby Boomers and IL

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Veterans. Millennial teachers, for example, are known to ignore the hierarchy and share their opinions freely. They think nothing of e-mailing the superintendent directly with a concern. Consider this correspondence:

Dear Dr. Miller:

Our school was supposed to have SMART Boards installed over winter break. But they aren’t in our classrooms yet. Do you know what the holdup is? I asked my principal, but she has no clue.

Chloe Patterson3rd-Grade Teacher

Parkview Elementary

For younger teachers, such assertiveness was cultivated throughout their lives as parents encouraged them to speak their mind. But skirting around the boss can throw

Baby Boomer principals into a tizzy. If they had an issue when they were teaching, they wouldn’t dream of taking it straight to the top.

Superintendents must learn to push for change while also protecting the comfort zone that gives each genera-tion a sense of pride and stability. The idea is to keep the workplace tempo fast enough so younger employ-

“Superintendents must learn to push for change while also protecting the comfort zone that gives each generation a sense of pride and stability.”

continued on page 14

Identifying the Players in your LineupBaby Boomers generation Xers MillennialsCarEEr IDEaLS CarEEr IDEaLS CarEEr IDEaLS

kk Strong need to prove self to others — especially the boss

kk Follow the chain of commandkk Value product over processkk Willing to go extra milekk Struggle with changekk May try to manipulate

rules to get own way

kk Strive for balance, flexibilitykk Expect to have fun at workkk Prefer independence, with

minimal supervisionkk Good at multitaskingkk Value process over productkk Adapt easily to change

kk Anxious to fit inkk Like to be mentored by

older colleagueskk Respect authority, but not afraid

to approach boss with concernskk Shy away from conflictkk Exceptional at multitaskingkk Demand change and stimulating work

PET PEEvES PET PEEvES PET PEEvES

kk Unfriendlinesskk Slackerskk Looking foolish in front of peerskk Political incorrectnesskk Overly technical informationkk Disregard for experiencekk Not paying your dues,

putting in the time

kk Schmoozingkk Politics, fancy titleskk Stern lectureskk Clichés, jargonkk Too many policies, ruleskk Inefficiencykk Harping on what they already know

kk Cynicism, sarcasmkk Unfair treatmentkk Implying they can’t do somethingkk Low expectationskk Outdated technology or informationkk Boredom

GaFFES THaT CauSE GruDGES GaFFES THaT CauSE GruDGES GaFFES THaT CauSE GruDGES

“This teamwork thing stinks.”“I’m too busy to come to your meeting.”“Whatever!”“Tell me again when you said you were retiring?”

“If you cared about the team, you’d stay late like the rest of us.”“We have to do this because the district office said so.”“You’ve got to earn your stripes before getting that assignment.”“Didn’t you read that in the policy manual?”

“Since you’re new, you probably don’t have anything to contribute.”“Are you sure you aren’t supposed to be in high school instead of teaching it?”“You should be happy just to have a job.”“When I was your age …”

Source: Adapted from Generations at School: Building an Age-Friendly Learning Community (Corwin Press) by Suzette Lovely and Austin G. Buffum


; C O v E r S T O r y

R ecently, I approached a sink in an airport restroom and waved my hands under the faucet. When nothing happened, I waved them again. Still

nothing. As I tried the next sink, an older gentleman pointed to a knob by the basin and said, “Push that.”

Chuckling at my blunder, it occurred to me that the confusion I felt because of my presumption about the sink must be similar to the bewilderment today’s learners feel at school. They expect technology, which is an ordinary part of their daily lives, will be integral to their education — yet often it isn’t.

Students’ exposure to technology in school varies widely by teacher. Unless a school has a dedicated initiative, laptops may not be welcome in a classroom. Personal electronics, considered a distraction, typically are banned. Ironically, rather than helping students focus on the subject at hand, such measures hinder schools from preparing students for life in a digital world.

constant accessTo create true 21st-century schools where technology is used as fundamentally as it is in the workplace, we must transition away from what we have always done. Where textbooks used to anchor the curriculum, technology is at the core of today’s most successful schools. Yet technology integration can create an enor-mous challenge for school administrators, who must manage the gamut of expectations from tech-confident Millennial students to tech-resistant Baby Boomers.

While many Baby Boomers are comfortable immigrants to the world of the digital natives who populate our classrooms, some regard technology as gadgets best left outside learning spaces. Other educators are uncertain how to incorporate technology effectively in their teaching. Even Gen Xers, who came of age as technology was emerging and use it extensively themselves, may have difficulty envisioning its role in today’s classroom because they were, educated under the old model.

Then there are the Millennials. Accustomed to having constant access to information through technology, they are waving their hands under the faucet, but instead of a gush, there is not even a trickle.

It is not enough for schools to give every student a laptop. A one-to-one student-to-

computer ratio is important, especially with large socioeco-nomic gaps among students, but teachers must translate that technology into learning. Tech-successful schools articu-late explicit goals about tech-nology and what they expect teachers and students to be able to do with it. Then they develop tech-infused curricula; provide hardware, software and connectivity; and commit to high-quality professional development and support.

taking advantageHere’s an introduction to three tech-successful schools, all with populations where 50 percent to 80 percent of students qualify under federal guidelines as economically disadvan-taged.

A magnet high school, A.J. Moore Academy in Waco, Texas, ensures teachers can help students take full advantage of available technology resources by employing a full-time specialist who provides instructional technology support and coaches faculty in creative technology inte-gration. Traditional instruction is augmented with artificial intelligence software that helps students improve writing skills. Science classrooms feature computer-based microscopes. Online science and math programs help students practice real-world concept application. Students in A.J. Moore’s Academy of Information Technology expand their skills by conducting tech trainings for parents.

At Ashe County Middle School in rural Warrensville, N.C., teachers and students are partners in exploring technology. It is expected learners will be tech competent when they enter high school. The school is working toward providing laptops for all students, and teachers already have them for grading, e-mail, research, data review and management, and connecting to SMART Boards in their classrooms. A full-time media specialist teams with teachers to develop engaging, rigorous and relevant lessons that inte-grate technology to simulate real-world experi-ences. Teachers participate in weekly technology trainings.

English Estates Elementary School in Fern Park, Fla., has made technology a priority. A full-time

technology facilitator supports creative and independent use of instructional technology throughout the K-5 school. The school also has a designated network administrator, so the technology facilitator is able to focus on supporting teachers and students in gaining profi-ciency in existing and emerging technologies. Each class-room has several fully wired computers for students to prac-

tice using software and explore online resources. Digital still and video cameras are available to teachers to enhance project-based learning.

Skeptical thinkersCreating a 21st-century school requires serious thought and legwork. For leaders who are readying their schools to embrace this chal-lenge, here are three key elements to consider.

First, it is imperative to set a vision that includes technology as a central component of learning, not an add-on or a fad. Successful school leaders build a transition plan that connects a clear vision to an agenda that establishes tech-nology as an integral, everyday part of the learning experiences of staff and students.

Second, high-quality, ongoing professional development and support are vital. Technology changes quickly, so occasional in-service days are insufficient. Professional development should not be geared toward the learning speed of the fastest few but to the pace of the slower many. Successful schools support staff in multiple ways, such as peer mentoring, frequent trainings, online support, on-site coaching from special-ized staff and more.

Third, winning over the digital skeptics begins with an understanding about the ever-increasing role technology plays in our lives and therefore in our schools. The Millennials, with a lifetime of technology at their fingertips, are not the students the system was designed to teach, and our schools are not preparing them for the present, much less the future.

ray Mcnulty, a former superintendent, is senior vice president of the international center for Lead-ership in Education in rexford, n.Y., and author of It’s Not Us Against Them: Creating the Schools We Need. E-mail: [email protected]

Student Expectations Unmet: Where Are the Electronics?B y R A y M O N D J . M CN u L t y

ray Mcnulty

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ees don’t lose interest, but slow enough so that older employees aren’t overwhelmed. Just because a practice is old doesn’t mean new ideas should be jettisoned. At the same time, just because something is new doesn’t mean there’s no room for the old. Understanding the generational underpinnings that drive employee behavior makes it easier to gain the commitment required to boost student achievement.

Hot ButtonsAt the heart of the clash between Baby Boomers and younger counterparts is the issue of work-life balance. Boomers revolutionized the meaning of career, productiv-ity and success — often at a price to family and friends. The “Boomerocracy” is known to define its very essence by professional achievements. As a result, seasoned teach-ers and administrators struggle to accept a perceived unwillingness to work hard on the part of Gen Xers and Millennials. While Boomers stay after school for meetings, attend Saturday events and serve on committees without expecting extra pay, Gen Xers and Millennials won’t do much of anything for free.

This “live to work” ethos lies in stark contrast to

younger employees who want flexible work schedules and a life outside of school. While a Boomer principal wouldn’t dare leave the office before 5 p.m., an Xer has no qualms about dashing out at 3:30 to catch his son’s lacrosse game. With Blackberry in hand, the superintend-ent or anyone else can reach him if something comes up. Similarly, Millennial teachers are often spotted making a beeline to the parking lot at 2:30 p.m. to beat afternoon traffic. As multitasking marvels, 20-somethings head to yoga class, meet friends at Starbucks, catch an 8 p.m. movie, grade papers and climb in bed at midnight still wondering if they couldn’t have squeezed in one more activity today.

While Boomers are idealistic and loyal, Xers are prag-matic and independent. Growing up, slogans like “a pill in time saves nine” didn’t impress upon them they were wanted or deserving of much attention. Between Water-gate, oil embargoes and unemployment, Xers learned to take care of themselves. They become restless quickly. After all, this is the generation that invented the X Games, zip lines and the Internet. But sometimes that Indiana Jones spirit can exasperate older bosses and co-workers.

Like other generations, the Millennial psyche is shaped

continued from page 12

A sk Joan Cortlund, chief technology officer in the Sumner, Wash., School District, about Millennial Generation teachers and their social networking

and you’ll elicit a passionate response. “We need to meet these new teachers

where they’re at and not try to fit the way they communicate or teach into the guidelines of my generation,” Cortlund says.

At the same time, she is well aware of the challenges. “Millennials don’t know life without a computer, yet policies are being set by Baby Boomers like myself who aren’t always up to speed with technology and feel a responsibility to protect propriety and keep students safe.”

collaborative nature With turnover on the rise among young teachers and the costs of recruiting and replacing them spiraling ever higher, school district administrators are feeling the pres-sure to create environments in which Millen-nial teachers (those born since 1982) not only survive but thrive. According to the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future, the annual cost of teacher turnover nation-

wide amounts to $7.3 billion, but the psychic cost for administrators and the disruption to students when teachers leave are harder to estimate. What’s a district to do?

Understanding the Millennials — who they are and what makes them tick — will be key to imple-menting new practices for helping teachers succeed. Compared to the independent Gen Xers who came before them, Millennials are a highly collabora-tive generation. They’ve worked on team proj-ects from middle school through college, and they’ve collaborated with family members at home on decisions like where to go on vacation or what electronic gadget to buy.

But when they enter full-time employment and are assigned to an individual classroom with a single mentor, they often feel isolated and unmotivated.

Also, this is a generation that sees technology not simply as a tool for getting things done, but as the basis for conducting their lives. Blocking Internet or e-mail access, tolerating poor band-width, or offering “old school” tools not only

frustrates teachers of this age group, it can be a deal breaker.

Now the access-to-technology issue has been complicated by the advent of social networking. Websites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn provide Millennials with more than just ways to chat with friends and post photos. They can share ideas and opin-ions, conduct research, learn best

practices and connect with colleagues. To be cut off from these opportunities in a profes-sion that is already somewhat isolating might seem too high a price to pay.

Preventing MisuseAs a result, school districts face tough decisions regarding questions about teacher access as well as concerns around privacy, appropriateness and children’s safety if social networking sites are misused by students or staff. How can admin-istrators respond?

Get grounded in the issues. Before wading into policy decisions, leaders should become familiar with new technologies and under-

Meeting Millennial Teachers on Their own High-Tech TurfB y L y N N e C . L A N C A S t e R

Lynne Lancaster



by the experiences and influences of its youth. While Grandma and Grandpa hung out at the corner drug store and Mom and Dad took the bus to the shopping mall, teens of the 1990s found their sanctuary in cyberspace. Although their power to communicate and compete glob-ally is astounding, Millennials have a hard time estab-lishing boundaries. Inexperienced teachers may suddenly find themselves in trouble as they Tweet, text and invite students to visit their Facebook page. Older colleagues view such casualness as offensive and unprofessional.

Raised by helicopter parents who insisted on second and third chances, Millennials began leaving college in 2004 thinking they could write their own ticket. But dwindling job prospects have left overconfident Mil-lennials struggling to come up with Plan B. Last year in California, more than 26,000 teachers received pink slips as school districts cut positions to balance 2009-10 budgets. At a local school board meeting in Orange County, two mothers of teachers lambasted trustees for eliminating class-size reduction and “taking away” their daughters’ jobs. The Boomer moms pleaded with the board to reconsider its decision not for the sake of students, but for the sake of their own precious children.

Parents who confront employers on behalf of their

adult children is a scenario never witnessed in the days of Ozzie and Harriet. Yet for the T-ball generation where everyone gets up to bat and is assured a hit, rejection isn’t in the sphere of reality. Millennials can become quite persistent with a personnel department, too, when told “no thanks” after a job interview.

Labor PainsBaby Boomers fought hard for their rights in the class-room, demanded better pay and turned collective bargain-ing into a cottage industry. They expect to be honored for their sacrifices that helped improve working conditions for the masses. Fighting for change isn’t as important to a Boomer as it is to maintain the status quo. This explains

“understanding the generational underpinnings that drive employee behavior makes it easier to gain the commitment required to boost student achievement.”

stand both the potential upsides and possible risks. Cortlund, who is also the past president of the Association for Computer Professionals in Education, said, “Many of the existing rules were made by Boomers like me who didn’t understand all that would be possible. We need to open our minds and rethink policies that are already outmoded.”

understand the Millennials’ desire to collab-orate. For this generation it won’t be enough to have a local mentor or two. These young people are accustomed to accessing a much wider world. Even as you worry about the dangers, such as posting unsuitable items or making inappropriate contact with students, consider the possibilities. Many schools are instituting professional learning communities. Who says they have to involve only teachers who can meet face to face? These networks soon will cross district, state or even national boundaries as young teachers look to share ideas with cohorts around the globe.

Create common-sense rules. Raised in a less formal society with fewer boundaries, Millen-nials tend to blur the lines between their personal and professional lives more than prior generations. Although they might post photos of a trip to Cancun on Facebook so co-workers can see them, they might not grasp why it’s unacceptable for students to see them. As one

Millennial teacher put it, “If you can go into a classroom and see a picture of the teacher’s dog, why does it cross a boundary if it’s on a social networking website?”

Fears of everything from plagiarism to pedo-philes and porn plague administrators whose gut reaction is to toss out the technology. One school district recently placed a ban on teachers sending text messages to students after a male coach was fired for sending sexually explicit text messages to an underage female. Other coaches were upset by the ban because they used texting to inform team members about practice and competition schedules.

In reality, districts simply want teachers to be appropriate online in the same ways they would be in person. The answer lies not in banning the tools, but in communicating the rules.

Put social networks to work for you. Under the rubric of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” companies like the accounting firm KPMG have pages on Facebook where Millennial new hires can meet one another and socialize online before they start work. They arrive for their first day on the job already feeling connected to the culture.

Studies show Millennials who connect with others early on are more likely to be retained. Can you use social networks in recruiting and induction or in helping teachers share concerns

or teaching techniques throughout their careers?

Teach the teachers. Don’t assume anybody knows the rules. Millennials may never have been told explicitly what is allowed and what is not. They need to understand privacy laws and how these play out — for example, any incident involving a child should not be discussed publicly.

It helps to view the advent of new technolo-gies as a teachable moment for everyone. Older teachers may be unfamiliar with new tools and thus may resist new ways to collaborate online.

Finally, when working to retain Millennial teachers, highlight all the ways your school district already is on top of technology. In the Sumner, Wash., district, every new hire gets a week of training before school starts, including a full day on technology and social-networking opportunities in the district and in the building to which they are assigned. After all, tech-nology is here to stay, and if you’ve got it, you might as well flaunt it.

Lynne Lancaster is a consultant on generational issues based in Sonoma, calif., and co-author (with david Stillman) of the upcoming book The M-Factor: How to Turn the Millennial Generation’s Great Expectations into Even Greater Results (Harpercollins). E-mail: [email protected]


why concepts like site-based management and shared decision making haven’t been well received in schools. Seasoned teachers and administrators tend to view the hierarchy as a safe, predictable structure. When direction comes from the top, subordinates don’t have to shoulder too much responsibility or accept too much blame.

While Baby Boomers demand equality in the work-place, Gen Xers and Millennials strive for equity. Logical questions persist: “Why can’t I make the same salary as an older colleague who’s only half as good as me? Why do senior teachers have more rights even though I pay my fair share of union dues?” Merit pay and performance incentives are attractive concepts to quintessential Xers like President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. To those who’ve competed with Boomers all their lives, more effective workers should earn at least as much as less effective ones, no matter who has done the job longer.

In the not-too-distant past, teachers’ unions could be counted on for their solidarity. But a generational fissure has made its way into the milieu of organized labor. Nei-ther Xers nor Millennials share the same homogenized views about their union as older educators. Nor do they join things the way their parents or grandparents once did — especially if nothing’s in it for them. In a 2003 Public Agenda survey, only 19 percent of teacher respondents felt their national association accurately reflected their values and beliefs.

After layoff hearings in California last spring, the clash turned nasty. Some Millennial teachers confronted co-workers in staff lounges and in the blogosphere for an unwillingness to take a pay cut to save jobs. The riff continued throughout the summer months when many teaching positions still were not restored. The divide was evident in this blogger’s response to a laid-off neophyte:

“We are absolutely losing some good young teachers who will be [even better] with more experiences to draw upon. But let’s not convince ourselves that these young teachers are the reason for the success of the district. The very best teachers are the ones who have been doing this awhile. … Conversely, some of our newest teachers are more worried about whether or not their students like them than they are about whether the kid is learning.” (Posted on the blog Beyond the Blackboard of the Cap-istrano Dispatch by Enough of Bashing Older Teachers.)

Such interactions cause Boomers to complain that the newbies aren’t team players. The fact is, Gen Xers don’t mind working on teams as long as they have some control over who they work with and how projects are completed. Millennials, who were raised on cooperative learning and team sports, actually value teamwork. However, both gen-erations want to make certain job duties or peer expecta-tions don’t compromise their extensive outside interests.

Unnatural dialogueAmerica’s schools are for the most part led by Baby Boomer superintendents, principals and school boards. Those who grew up in the post-WWII baby boom will continue to occupy these seats into 2012 and beyond. Schools, however, are full of Generation X teachers and administrators who perceive things much differently. Mil-lennials are also starting to make their mark. Their size and achievements are predicted to rival, if not surpass, those of the Boomers.

At the very least, superintendents should analyze career ideals, pet peeves and grudges through a generational lens (see page 12). Disagreements have to be handled civilly, constructively and speedily. There’s little tolerance among the public for petty bickering, whining or latching on to outdated traditions that hinder students’ ability to leave high school ready for the global marketplace.

The intergenerational dialogue so vital to the devel-opment of strong learning communities doesn’t come naturally to educators. But when age-based differences are factored in to professional development, hiring practices and staff assignments, it sets the stage for a collaborative outcome. On the other hand, if we ignore such differences, culture wars will obstruct progress. The wider the divide becomes, the harder it is to bridge. Knowing what binds staff together or pulls them apart allows you to bring out the best in your people. n

Suzette Lovely is assistant superintendent for personnel services in the Placentia Yorba Linda Unified School district in Placentia, calif. E-mail: [email protected]. She is the co-author of Genera-tions at School. PH

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Suzette Lovely, a central-office leader in california, is the co-author of Generations at School: Building an Age-Friendly Learning Community.



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Slowly but surely, Generation Xers have been tak-ing over from Baby Boomers as the majority of parents in elementary and secondary education. In the early 1990s, Gen Xers began joining par-ent-teacher associations in the nation’s elemen-

tary schools. Around 2005, they became the majority of middle school parents. By the fall of 2008, they took over as the predominant parents of high school seniors.

Gen-X parents and Boomer parents belong to two neighboring generations, each possessing its own loca-tion in history and its own peer personality. They are similar in some respects, but clearly different in others.

Throughout the 1990s, educators grew accustomed to “helicopter parents,” Boomer parents of Millennials who sometimes are helpful, sometimes annoying, yet always hovering over their children and making noise.

Today, behold the era of the Gen-X “stealth-fighter parent.” Stealth-fighter parents do not hover. They choose when and where they will attack. If the issue seems below their threshold of importance, they save their energy and let it go entirely. But if it crosses their threshold and shows up on their radar, they will strike — rapidly, in force and often with no warning.

When these Gen-X “security moms” and “committed

dads” are fully roused, they can be even more attached, protective and interventionist than Boomers ever were. Web junkies, they will monitor Edline and Blackboard sites nightly, send e-mails to school board members, trade advice on blogs and look up teacher credentials. Flex work-ers, they will juggle schedules to monitor their kids’ activi-ties in person. Speedy multitaskers, they will quickly switch their kids into — or take them out of — any situation according to their assessment of their youngsters’ inter-ests. As The Washington Post recently quipped, “Parental involvement in our schools has become an extreme sport.”

common goodBoomers always have cared deeply about the higher moral and civic goals of education, for the ultimate purpose (recall the ’60s!) of creating a more ethical and socially conscious community. Gen-X moms and dads tend to be more interested in how the right school will create concrete opportunities for their own children.

Many Gen Xers believe they live in an individualistic world in which there is no common interest and people do best by looking out for their own interests. As voters, they are less sympathetic than Boomers to cross subsidies and state equalization formulas and more intent on pre-

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Gen X:

Strategies for school leaders when dealing with customer-service expectations, self-interest and stealth-fighter tactics

B y N e I L H O W e

A New Parent Generation


serving local funds for local purposes. As parents, they will be more exclusively focused on their own child than the good of the school. While Boomers might volunteer for a districtwide curriculum committee, Gen-X parents will prefer to be a class chaperone, which directly benefits (and allows them personally to monitor) their own child.

Boomer helicopter parents generally assume the rewards of school and college are vast but impossible to measure. But stealth-fighter parents are more likely to assume that anything immeasurable is untrustworthy. Back when Xers were graduating from K-12, one blue ribbon commission after another told them their schools had failed and that the passionate hopes of ’60s reformers had miscarried. Now they want proof their children won’t have the same problem.

Many Gen-X parents acquire a surprising degree of (self-taught) expertise about teaching methods and will bring stacks of Web printouts into meetings with teach-ers. A quip often used by former Education Secretary Margaret Spellings (herself a late-wave Boomer, born in 1957) speaks to many Gen-X parents: “In God we trust. All others bring data.”

This local, pragmatic, bottom-line perspective certainly contrasts with the more global, idealistic and aspirational

perspective of Boomers. It has driven the rapid growth of parent-teacher organizations that opt out of any affiliation to the National Parent Teacher Association. According to many younger parents, the PTA is simply too large, too inflexible, too politically correct and too deferential to the educational establishment.

Skeptical of grandiose claims and worried about mak-ing ends meet economically, most Gen Xers are acutely sensitive to the prices they pay and the value they receive in return. As voters, they may doubt that a routine tax or fee is really worth whatever schools are buying with it. As parents, they comparison shop to make sure a school’s reputation or brand is worth all the life costs they must incur (including mortgage payments and property taxes) for their children to attend. They are always looking for a discount or shortcut. While Boomers may brag about how much they paid for a BMW, Gen Xers are more likely to brag about how little they paid.

As a whole, Gen Xers feel comfortable with market outcomes — and most Gen-X parents expect schools to be run like customer-oriented businesses. As with other pur-chases and investments, Gen Xers believe their children’s education should be a fair and open transaction with complete and accurate information and unconstrained IL

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A New Parent Generation


consumer choice. They will evaluate the transaction on the basis of the value it appears to offer. If it doesn’t offer the right value, they will take their business elsewhere — whether another school district, a charter school, a private school or home schooling. It is practically impossible to persuade most Gen-X parents they should relinquish their choice for the sake of some great public good.

Administrators long have complained about Boomer helicopter parents who argue endlessly with teachers and administrators whenever their child encounters a problem. Gen-X stealth-fighter parents are less likely to argue at great length and more likely to find a loophole, buck rank or go quickly to a confrontational posture. Some Xers may skip the discussion stage entirely and move immediately to a decisive action — suddenly filing a lawsuit, for example, or withdrawing their child from a school with no warning.

Employers already notice this difference with Gen Xers as employees. When they don’t like their boss, they don’t talk, they walk. As K-12 parents, they will walk with their child.

What to doSo how should schools adjust to this broad shift in genera-tional attitudes and priorities? Educators can implement the following strategies to cope with Gen-X parents:

l aSSuME nO TruST. MarkET TO THEM, SPELL OuT THE ruLES anD STarT rELaTIOnSHIPS EarLy. To win over Gen-X consumers, almost every industry — from autos to health insurance plans to financial and legal services — is trying to build trust by assuming no brand loyalty, by rejustifying product value from the ground up and by educating buyers about what they must do in order for the product to work as expected. K-12 schools will get along better with Gen X if they take a similar approach.

First, assume no trust. Given their generally positive or at least empowering experience with education institu-tions, Boomers generally have trusted the school bureau-cracy to do right by their children. Not today’s younger parents. Schools must gird themselves for Xers who feel they have no reason to trust the schools’ competence — and take steps to justify their performance in every area, from physical safety to academic achievement.

Second, market to them. More business oriented than Boomers, Gen Xers are impressed by marketing skills that enable an institution to make its best case quickly and easily to busy consumers. Incredibly, public school districts routinely bury favorable findings about their performance in unreadable memos, while allowing the media to shape negative findings without rebuttal. Most districts would benefit by hiring a marketing consultant. To Gen Xers,

When you talk generations, the first thing most people want to know is where they fit.

This article traces the life stories of today’s six living generations, who they are and how they have affected America’s schools. Think about your own colleagues, students and family members. When were they born, and how has their generational membership shaped them?

THE G.I. GEnEraTIOn (born 1901-1924) are today retired and emeritus. They came of age during the Great Depression and World War II. In midlife, they built suburbs, invented vaccines, laid out interstates and launched moon rockets. Civic minded and politically powerful all their lives (even deep in old age — think of the AARP), G.I.s built many of today’s bedrock, postwar social and economic institutions, including the standardized K-12 school system and comprehensive high school.

The G.I.s were themselves a generation of extraordinary educational achievement, and they hoped to institutionalize that success in a system that would guarantee steady educational progress for their own children and grandchil-

dren. Those hopes ran aground when Boomer and Gen-X students passed through that system from the 1960s through 1980s. Today’s elder generation of senior citizens, G.I.s remind younger educators that once upon a time most people trusted schools, respected teachers and believed national progress depended upon a well-run school system.

THE SILEnT GEnEraTIOn (born 1925-1942) are mostly retired, but still present as school board members, senior civic leaders and community volunteers. Children of the Great Depression and World War II, they came of age too late to be war heroes and too early to be youthful free spirits. Instead, this early-marrying, lonely crowd became the risk-averse professionals, sensitive rock ’n’ rollers and civil rights advocates of a conformist postwar era.

Midlife was an anxious passage for a genera-tion torn between stolid elders and passionate juniors. Their assumption of national leadership, in the 1970s, coincided with fragmenting families, cultural diversity and institutional complexity. Many reacted to their own strictly sheltered childhood by giving greater freedom to their

Boomer and Gen-X children. The Silent were protected, well-behaved

K-12 students during the 1930s and ’40s. Silent educators set the tone for the nation’s schools during the late 1960s through 1980s, dismantling G.I. rules, diversifying requirements, and experi-menting with open classrooms and unstructured curricula. As K-12 parents, they were generally hands-off, trusting the school system to do its work. Skillful with discussion and process, many Silent educators continue to preside over school bureaucracies while mediating among their younger colleagues.

THE BaBy BOOM GEnEraTIOn (born 1943-1960) are today’s most experienced teachers and principals and the majority of superintend ents, school board members and local political leaders. They grew up as indulged youth during an era of community-spirited progress. Coming of age, however, Boomers rejected the outer-world system built by their parents in favor of inner visions and self-perfection.

The Baby Boom awakening climaxed with Vietnam War protests, the 1967 summer of

The Lineup of Generations


who disproportionately fill the ranks of America’s sales and marketing workforce, the inability to shape and pro-ject a clear message is itself a symptom of incompetence.

Third, spell out the rules. Gen Xers, accustomed to thriving in a high-option marketplace, tend to believe they have a right to anything not explicitly denied them in the contract. When introducing themselves to parents, K-12 districts should explicitly spell out the reciprocal obliga-tions of parents and schools — and enumerate concretely where the school will take the lead (and parents should not interfere) and where parents must pitch in to ensure student success. Like many colleges, schools can frame this agreement as a contract or a covenant. While not legally binding, this document will catch the attention of these parents, who always want to know the rules of the game.

Finally, schools should make every effort to start their relationship with parents early and on their own terms before there is a problem. If a child ends up failing an exam or being suspended for misbehavior, the teacher or counselor could be an ally in whom the parent confides — or an enemy the parent fights tooth and nail. The first meeting often makes all the difference.

l STrESS PErSOnaL aCCOunTaBILITy anD PErSOnaL COnTrIBuTIOn. Compared to Boomers, Gen Xers are less likely to trust good intentions or a well-designed institu-

tional process and more likely to trust bottom-line incen-tives and personal accountability. They don’t want to see guidelines and flowcharts outlining a school’s emergency response plan or curriculum acceleration plan. What they want to see is a real person who is concretely accountable for the outcome.

School leaders should stress a chain of personal accountability for anything that goes wrong, particularly in zero-tolerance areas like school safety. Designate a go-to person for everything from fire drills to hall monitoring to student counseling and mental health.

In their own market-oriented lives, Gen Xers are accustomed to bottom-line incentives (“win this contract and get a bonus; lose it and you’re fired”) and often are suspicious of institutions where individual accountability never seems to enter the picture.

Showcasing accountability will also help draw Gen-X parents into volunteering for tasks that don’t involve their own children. Give Gen Xers “ownership” of the project. Make sure they understand they are helping real people, not just “the system.” And find creative ways to reward them if it goes well, as many of these parents are entre-preneurial.

l OFFEr DaTa, STanDarDS, TranSParEnCy anD rETurn On InvESTMEnT. Gen-X parents want measurable

love, inner-city riots, the first Earth Day and Kent State. In the aftermath, Boomer “yuppies” appointed themselves arbiters of the nation’s values and crowded into such “culture careers” as teaching, journalism, marketing and the arts. During the ’90s, they trumpeted family values and waged scorched-earth culture wars.

First-wave Boomers passed through schools during a time of strong civic confidence, when the teaching profession was at a height of public prestige. By the time the last wave arrived, schools were immersed in a raging controversy over social turmoil, youth anger and worsening outcomes. Boomers flooded into teaching careers in the 1980s and ’90s, bringing an intensive work ethic and an ideological bent. As parents, they have been an active, supportive and hovering group, viewing public schools as institutions of mission and meaning and colleges as essential destinations for their own children.

GEnEraTIOn X (born 1961-81) are most of today’s teachers and the newer principals and superintendents. They survived a hurried childhood of divorce, latchkeys and open classrooms. They learned young they were largely on their own and could not count on any institution, including schools, to watch out for their best interests. From grunge to

hip hop, their culture has revealed a hardened edge. Politically, they have leaned toward prag-matism and nonaffiliation. In jobs, they have embraced free-agent risk, trust the market-place over institutional intermediaries and matured into one of the most dynamic and resilient generations of entrepreneurs in U.S. history.

Gen Xers passed through grade school while the Consciousness Revolution was in full boil. Even as their school achievement leveled out, “A Nation at Risk” report accused Xers of being “a rising tide of mediocrity.” Schools curtailed supervision, de-emphasized the basics and dramatically lowered teacher pay. As today’s dominant teacher corps and rising political leaders, Xers are rejecting ideology to focus on productivity and measurable standards.

Gen X includes most of today’s hardest-edged K-12 reformers, including Michelle Rhee, chancellor of the D.C. schools, and KIPP founders Dave Levin and Mike Feinberg. As parents, they are determined not to let their children experience the same problems they encountered. They have provided the most vocal constituency for school reforms that set standards, require transparency, impose accountability and enable all forms of parental choice.

MILLEnnIaL GEnEraTIOn (born 1982-2004) are today’s K-12 students as well as entry-level teachers and staff. They arrived when “Baby on Board” signs appeared. As abortion and divorce rates ebbed, the popular culture began stigmatizing hands-off parenting styles and recasting babies as special. By the mid-’90s, politicians were defining adult issues (from tax cuts to PBS funding to Internet access) in terms of their effects on children. The media has cordoned off child-friendly havens; student achievement is rising; and educators speak of standards and cooperative learning. As this generation’s leading edge now graduates from colleges and starts careers under the wings of protec-tive parents, rates of community service and voting among young adults are surging. (Sometimes this generation is referred to as Generation Y.)

HOMELanD GEnEraTIOn (born 2005-?) are now entering preschool and will include the babies born between now and the mid-2020s. Their always-on-guard nurturing style will be substantially set by Gen-X parents, who already are gaining a reputation for extreme sheltering.

— neil Howe


standards for schools, teachers and students. They want to know how those standards are linked to career and life success. They want to see data measuring the achievement of those standards. And they expect transparency in all important deliberations about strategy.

Xer constituents will call on school boards to show in detail that each tax dollar serves a concrete purpose for their children’s education. They are less likely than Boomers to accept credentials (of schools, administrators and teachers) at face value and will want access to data on everything from hiring practices to teacher evaluations.

Gen-X parents will be especially prone to pounce on issues that affect student success. Schools will face rising pressure to offer accurate and comprehensible informa-tion on all their evaluation systems — from consistency in grade point averages and Advanced Placement scores across schools and courses to procedures for assigning class levels and evaluating disabilities.

Above all, educators should collect data on what hap-pens to students after graduation. Gen-X parents often are astonished to find out how little schools know about long-term student outcomes. After all, in the marketplace companies are judged, continuously and without mercy, according to how well their products measure up.

Gen-X parents will demand more than graduation and college enrollment rates. They will want to know the documented career outcomes and earnings capabilities of graduates five and 10 years down the road. They also may

want to see data comparing long-term outcomes among an array of choices, such as “stopping out” of school for a year, home schooling, entering a career academy, loading up on AP courses, using community college as a stepping stone for a four-year degree and so on. Gen Xers want to advise their child in the same way they manage their finances: hands on, eyes open, all options on the table.

l OFFEr rEaL-TIME SErvICE (THE “FED-EX” TEST). Gen-X parents will apply the “FedEx” test to their children’s schools, expecting the service to be cheerful, fast and efficient, with information and options in real time, online, 24/7. As educators are already beginning to note, those once-per-semester parent-teacher nights, snail-mail notifications and rotary phone tree messages no longer will cut it. If Gen-X parents can get instant, real-time information on something as trivial as a package, why should they stay in the dark about their child’s academic performance?

School leaders should use digital technology to offer parents continuous access and include them in a tight cycle of intervention and redirection whenever their children hit an educational snag. Course management systems like Edline, which allow teachers to record and track each student’s performance every day, also can be used to instantly share performance data with parents. Some years down the road (when fewer Baby Boomers are left to object), schools may even install real-time video monitoring systems that let parents tune in to whatever is happening in their child’s classroom.

l PrESEnT yOur SCHOOL aS THE BEST ParEnT CHOICE In a COMPETITIvE MarkET. Ever since their children first entered elementary school, Gen Xers have been the most vocal constituency for education policies that empower parent choice, including vouchers, magnet schools and home schooling. Even within the public school system, the share of parents who say they “chose” (rather than being “assigned to”) their public school has grown steadily, from 11 percent in 1993 to 15 percent in 2003 to 18 percent in 2007.

Public school leaders who have grown accustomed to their role as default educators will no longer enjoy this luxury. Both public and private school leaders need to market their schools as top-notch options in a competitive education market and persuade parents they do indeed deliver the goods.

Gen Xers like being informed and energetic consumers. When Gen-X parents perceive they really are choosing a school, their enthusiasm and goodwill can be beneficial. When they perceive they don’t have any real choice, however, educators should prepare for a strong backlash over any policy event that reinforces their sense of being “trapped” (such as a decision to close down or combine schools or to redraw district lines).

Boomers, while often complaining, usually end up adapting themselves to whatever the system dishes out. Gen Xers are more likely to fight tooth and nail and even “game the system” to send their child to the school they decide is best.

neil Howe, who will be a general Session speaker at aaSa’s 2010 national conference, is the author of the forthcoming book Millennials in the Workplace: Human Resource Strategies for a New Generation.

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l PrEParE FOr THE MODuLar “OPT-OuT” COnSuMEr anD THE InnOvaTIvE HIGH-TECH COMPETITOr. Gen Xers like to compartmentalize, viewing every transaction as a menu-driven series of discrete and modular choices. Across America, Gen-X consumers are dealing out the middleper-son, avoiding product packages and demanding every item be customized to their tastes. Why buy a whole CD when you can purchase just the one song you like on iTunes?

Similarly, when making educational choices for their children, they may wonder why they should sign on for the whole K-12 package when parts of it may not be a perfect fit for their special child.

Many will want to split the K-12 experience into its components and pick and choose exactly what they want for their children. If a high school student wants to take a course that is not offered, can he take it online or at a community college for credit? If a middle schooler is pas-sionate about fencing, can she opt out of physical educa-tion to take lessons? If she wants to study marine biology, can she attend the career academy across town in the afternoons? If a student drops out, is there a customized, high-tech substitute to get that high school degree? If a certain school fails to facilitate this level of customization, Gen-X parents will take their business elsewhere.

As Gen-X parents generate a rising demand for a wide

spectrum of educational choices and credential substitutes over the next couple of decades, other Gen Xers entering midlife are likely to rise up to meet this demand. Gen-X entrepreneurs will find ways to provide new options out-side the traditional school setting, through auxiliary pro-grams, online courses, career modules and home-schooling aids. Gen-X info-tech designers will steadily improve the efficacy, flexibility, interactivity and entertainment value of teaching tools.

Meanwhile, as Gen-X voters, executives and elected officials replace Boomers in top leadership roles, they may agree to relax the credentials and help legitimize these end runs around the system. K-12 schools can deal with these new options by working with them, adopting them or outcompeting them. They cannot simply ignore them.

In the coming era of accountability, K-12 leaders need to face up to the rising tide of Gen-X parents. Schools that figure it out, collect the right data and market themselves intelligently to this new generation of parents will be able to rebrand themselves for success in the decades ahead. n

neil Howe is president and co-founder of Lifecourse associates in great Falls, Va. E-mail: [email protected]. He is the author of the forthcoming book Millennials in the Workplace: Human Resource Strategies for a New Generation.

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A conversation has emerged in education circles over how much latitude or autonomy principals should have. Should school districts simply find great school leaders and stay out of their way? Or should they take a more directive approach,

guiding improvement efforts all the way down to the classroom?

In 2007, the American Institutes of Research and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute released a report titled “The Autonomy Gap,” which argued that principals, who shoulder much of the burden of accountability systems, typically lack the authority they need to really improve student performance, especially when it comes to school staffing.

Due to this lack of authority, the authors wrote, “We suspect that principals who once yearned to be dynamic executives and change agents ‘selected out’ of the system in frustration, perhaps to run a charter school or enter a completely different field.”

More recently, an elementary school in the Denver Public Schools made waves by asking its local board and teachers’ union for waivers from district rules and collective bargaining agreements to enable the school’s leadership team to exert more control over personnel, budgeting and scheduling.

“We don’t see this as radical,” Greg Ahrnsbrak, physi-cal education teacher and union representative at the school, told the Denver Post. “We see this as common

sense. We want to be released from this bureaucratic entanglement that will allow us to do better.”

While granting schools more control over budget and staffing decisions may seem like common sense, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation learned the hard way that school autonomy, in and of itself, is no guarantee for improved performance. After spending roughly $1 bil-lion to create small, autonomous schools, the foundation learned these efforts had generated mixed results, at best.

“[One] thing I got wrong at the beginning was auton-omy,” the Gates Foundation’s former executive director, Tom Vander Ark, told Education Week in 2005. “I visited 100 great schools and made the observation that they were all small, autonomous and assumed that was a path to school improvement. It turns out giving a failing school autonomy is a bad idea.”

research guidanceSo how much autonomy should superintendents give school leaders, and how much is too much? McREL’s research on district leadership helps answer this question. McREL’s meta-analysis of research on superintendent and district effectiveness, reported in Tim Waters’ and Robert Marzano’s March 2007 School Administrator article titled “The Primacy of Superintendent Leadership,” found a statistically significant relationship (an average effect-size correlation of 0.24) between effective district leadership and student achievement.

autonomy forSchool Leaders

What does research have to say about how much freedom at the site level is too much? B y J A M e S e C K A N D B R y A N G O O D W I N


The research findings also demonstrated the impor-tance of school districts setting clear, non-negotiable goals for student achievement and classroom instruction, closely monitoring those goals, and marshaling resources and board support to achieve the goals. While the study validated common assumptions about high-functioning districts, it also surfaced two perplexing, and seemingly paradoxical, findings, which upon further examination shed light on how districts should define autonomy for school leaders.

School autonomy at the district level was reported to have a positive correlation (r = 0.28) with average student achievement. In other words, an increase in building-level autonomy was associated with an increase in student achievement. However, site-based management was found to have a negative correlation with student achievement (r = -0.16). In other words, an increase in site-based man-agement (which implies a higher degree of autonomy) was associated with a decrease in student achievement.

Waters and Marzano concluded from this finding that effective superintendents provide principals with “defined autonomy.” That is, they set clear, non-negotiable goals for learning and instruction, yet provide school leadership teams with the responsibility and authority for determin-ing how to meet those goals.

In our experience working with school districts nation-wide to implement these research findings, we have found that many, regardless of size, location or past performance, struggle to strike the right balance with school autonomy. In fact, it is often the perennially high-achieving districts that suffer most from autonomy gone wild. Their overall high achievement in the past has masked gaps between subgroups of students. As district leaders attempt to close the gaps through districtwide direction and consistency, they often meet with resistance from principals.

defining autonomy So what exactly should superintendents control and what should they leave up to principals? McREL’s research study provides some answers to this question, as well. Of 33 district-level leadership practices found to be correlated with higher levels of student achievement, more than half shed light on how school district leaders define school leaders’ autonomy.

Moreover, many of these practices are closely related to the attributes of what McREL has described in previ-ous publications (for example, “The Balanced Leadership Framework”) as “purposeful communities,” which display four key elements of high-performing organizations:


l Developing and pursuing outcomes that matter to all;

l Establishing and following agreed-upon processes; l Using all available assets, both tangible and intan-

gible, to achieve these outcomes; and l Demonstrating a strong sense of collective efficacy.

These four elements of high-performing organizations are consistent with Shirley Hord and Rick DuFour’s work on professional learning communities as well as a wide examination of business literature (e.g., Jim Collins’ Good to Great and Jonathan Low and Pam Cohen Kalafut’s Invisible Advantage), living systems theory (e.g., Marga-ret Wheatley’s Leadership and the New Science), studies of organizational development (e.g., Everett Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations) and Texas A&M researcher Roger God-dard’s examinations of “collective efficacy.”

defining Purposes Just as Collins has urged business leaders to focus their companies on achieving “big, hairy audacious goals,” and Larry Lezotte long ago extolled the importance of creating climates of “high expectations for students” and estab-lishing “clear and focused” missions, McREL’s analysis of research on superintendents found that leaders of high-performing districts:

l Adopt five-year, non-negotiable goals for achieve-ment and instruction;

l Establish clear priorities among the district’s instruc-tional goals and objectives;

l Develop coherent goals that call for higher levels of achievement rather than maintenance of the status quo; and

l Commit their districts and schools to continuous improvement.

Stated differently, effective district leaders identify goals that capture what members of their organizations can do only because they are together, make it clear that the district’s goals are non-negotiable, and rely on school leaders to ensure that school staff understand these goals and carry out school-level plans for achieving them.

Most school districts we work with have some type of strategic plan, with overall goals for student achievement. However, few have established non-negotiable goals for both achievement and instruction, to be adhered to by every school in the district.

Moreover, in their haste to get things done, districts often skip over the need to set goals collaboratively and instead impose top-down mandates, which fail to energize their communities by identifying outcomes that matter to everyone. In contrast to the top-down method, one midsize district we are working with has, in the midst of a massive systemic effort to close achievement gaps, engaged stakeholders from across its system to repurpose itself by establishing non-negotiable goals for (1) achieve-ment to close gaps; (2) an instructional program based on the International Baccalaureate framework; (3) cultural proficiency for all staff, students and the community; and (4) professional learning.

operating PrinciplesAnother key characteristic of purposeful communities is that they established agreed-upon processes for accom-plishing their shared goals. Living systems theorists point to the simple but powerful organizing principles of natural systems. The complex, synchronous ways in which flocks of birds and schools of fish move together without colliding is actually based on a few core principles that are instinc-tively understood by each member of the community.

Similarly, members of effective organizations share principles and values, which guide their behavior. In the business world, FedEx has created a strong corporate culture built around the theme that every employee of the company should “absolutely, positively, do whatever it takes” to satisfy customers. The result? FedEx is not only a profitable company, but also consistently ranks as one of Fortune magazine’s “best companies to work for.”

Our analysis of research on school districts similarly points to the importance of developing clear operating principles and processes. Specifically, we found that effec-tive superintendents:

l Focus their human resource systems and policies on hiring and retaining capable, experienced teachers;

l Direct district staff to work with principals to screen, interview and select teachers;

l Establish teacher evaluation as a priority for prin-cipals;

l Develop policies and procedures for rewarding suc-cessful teachers and terminating the employment of unsuccessful teachers;

l Establish strong agreed-upon principles/values that direct the actions of all district staff members; and

l Develop a shared vision and understanding of “defined autonomy” for school leaders, making it clear what principals are responsible for doing and what district office personnel are responsible for doing.

In short, effective superintendents provide principals with the authority over personnel matters they need to serve as strong building leaders, while seeking to ensure consistent approaches to evaluation for all teachers in the district and preventing arbitrary and capricious personnel decisions and practices.

tangible and intangible resourcesIn their groundbreaking 2002 book, Invisible Advantage, business researchers Jonathan Low and Pam Cohen Kalafut note that even in the hard-nosed world of Wall Street, 35 percent of professional investors’ allocation decisions are driven not by companies’ tangible assets, such as their num-ber of stores, cash reserves or profit margins, but rather by nonfinancial data — what they call “intangibles,” such as a company’s reputation, leadership and ability to innovate.

School and district success are similarly influenced by intangibles. Such intangibles as school climate and culture likely have as much (if not more) influence on student achievement than a school’s physical assets, such as the number of books in its library, computers per student or student-teacher ratios.


Effective district leaders focus on ensuring the equi-table distribution of tangible assets and the systematic development of intangible assets by:

l Controlling resource allocation to ensure the equi-table distribution of the district’s tangible assets, including its work force;

l Allowing for and promoting innovation (an intan-gible asset) at the school level; and

l Providing extensive teacher and principal staff development to develop the human capital (an intan-gible asset) necessary to achieve the district’s goals for teaching and learning.

Stated differently, effective district leaders understand the importance of distributing tangible assets equitably — for example, ensuring that all schools in the district are staffed with highly capable teachers. At the same time, they recognize the importance of providing principals with enough latitude to be able to innovate and create a culture of high expectations within their schools (an important intangible asset).

This might mean having enough flexibility in staffing and budgeting to create an interventionist or teacher-leader position within the school (a tangible asset) in an effort to develop the more important intangible asset of improved teaching quality in the school. Or it might mean giving principals enough freedom and authority to work with their school leadership teams to identify and implement new strategies for helping the school accom-plish the district’s goals.

collective EfficacyRoger Goddard, Texas A&M professor of educational administration and human resource development, has made a strong case for the importance of collective effi-cacy, a shared belief among teachers that all students can learn (a notion sometimes referred to as the Pygmalion effect) and that, by working together, they can help all students in their school succeed. Stated simply, it’s a “can-do” attitude that permeates staff. As Goddard has noted, collective efficacy is actually a better predictor of school success than student socioeconomic status or race.

Psychologist Albert Bandura has identified several sources of collective efficacy, including mastery expe-riences (helping people experience initial successes or “quick wins”), social persuasion (relying on influential individuals to create high expectations and encourage others to meet those expectations) and group enablement (providing individuals and groups with opportunities to offer input or develop their own responses to identified challenges).

Superintendents can support the development of col-lective efficacy in schools through a variety of practices, including:

l Maintaining high expectations for school perform-ance to reinforce the notion that all students can learn;

l Including socializing functions in district meetings to develop and reinforce the shared belief that every school in the district is capable of ensuring the success of every child;

l Celebrating initial successes by rewarding students beyond standard honor rolls and recognition assemblies for exceptional performance; and

l Empowering individuals and school communities within the district to increase reliability of the system by quickly responding to system failures (e.g., the under-achievement of student subgroups).

a Balancing actIt’s important to note that defining autonomy for prin-cipals is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Veteran princi-pals in high-achieving schools confidently handle more autonomy or degrees of freedom, while novice principals or struggling schools may need more guidance and direc-tion from central-office administrators.

Defined autonomy for school leaders is probably best described as a balancing act, with districts being directive in some areas, such as establishing goals and expectations for achievement, setting a general course for continuous improvement and defining high standards of performance for all personnel.

At the same time, effective district leaders recognize that some actions are best left up to principals, such as evaluating personnel based on district-approved crite-ria, developing or removing staff as necessary to meet performance standards, and developing cultures of high expectations within their own schools. n

Jim Eck is a senior director at Mid-continent research for Educa-tion and Learning in denver, colo. E-mail: [email protected]. Bryan goodwin is McrEL’s vice president for communications and marketing.PH

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Jim Eck (right) is a senior director at Mid-continent research for Education and Learning in denver, colo., where Bryan goodwin is vice president for communications and marketing.


A s superintendent, I work diligently to meet the demands by the West Virginia legislature, cata-lyzed by the aggressive role of West Virginia’s First Lady Gayle Manchin, to fight child obe-sity. Recently, our state department of education

agreed to enter the fight to curb the serious obesity and health problems among the children in our mountain-ous state.

West Virginia has risen to the second highest obesity rate among the 50 states over the past decade, according to the West Virginia Department of Education, and surpassed the national rate back in 2003 with a 6 percent increase in one year. The latest statistics indicate 31 percent of our student-age population is now overweight. Only Mississippi has a higher rate in a race no one wants to win.

While sitting at my office desk late one evening, nurs-ing my half-full can of warm diet soda, I thought about heading home but chose to read over our school district’s laudable wellness plan one more time before we would move on to implementation of the policy. A cloud over-shadowed my exhaustion as I thought to myself, “How

could we harangue children about the dangers of sodas, this ‘liquid Satan’ as described from the pulpit of healthy school advocates, when as adults we modeled the exact opposite? How could I, as a hypocritical leader of wellness in our school system, ask students to give up something that I would use intravenously if it was available to get me through afternoons?”

Evils of SodaWe had crafted the wellness policy with good intentions for the almost 2,000 students in our school community — students who were living in a small town or near one that’s considered rural by every definition. While pride kept many families from the poverty-level identification on required school forms, these were my students. According to 2000 census data analyzed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, 24 percent of children in West Virginia are living in poverty, and roughly a third of our students reside in high-poverty neighborhoods. The fact is, more poor people live in rural America, small towns and small metropolitan areas than in large central cities, defying conventional wisdom.

recognizing her own unhealthy eating habits brings new vigor to a district’s pursuit of student health

B y M A R S H A L . C A R R - L A M B e R t

School WellneSSPerSonal healthand

A Superintendent’S MAnifeSto:


Considering the message we were sending about the ill effects of drinking sodas, eating high concentrations of carb-rich foods and indulging in unhealthy snacks that contained high doses of sugar, I decided I should shake off these bad habits to encounter what I was asking of my students. I would eschew these bad habits. How hard could that be?

Before jumping into this healthy pit of hell, I began my quest for data. Ignoring factors such as exercise, stress or work demands, my focus would be on my actual eating habits, my food intake. I began to keep a food journal on what I was eating, when I was eating it and how much I ate. My latent habits were deplorable and inher-ently characteristic of many who work 12- to 16-hour days with little time off, travel extensively and spend considerable time in hotel rooms eating late-night res-taurant food.

Healthwise, a quarterly newsletter produced by the Foothill Foundation, reports that 65 percent of Ameri-can adults are overweight or obese, with obesity doubling in the adult population since 1980. Equally disturbing was what the research says about women. Overweight conditions are more prevalent among females who are racial and ethnic minorities than in non-Hispanic white women, and women of lower socioeconomic status are approximately 50 percent more likely to be obese than those of higher socioeconomic status. Among men, these health problems are more prevalent in Mexican Ameri-cans than in non-Hispanic whites or blacks.

Noting my own age, weight, socioeconomic status, height and some other factors, I began my metamorphosis by listing the foods and eating patterns I felt were not conducive to good health as described by the various studies and books I consulted. At the top of the list was my favorite evil, which would have to be sacrificed — my morning pot of coffee laden with artificial sweetener. Over time, using one or two packages of artificial sweetener no longer was enough to reach my nearly dead taste buds, so I had increased the dosage to six to 10 packages. I would also add a shot or two of additional artificial flavoring — sugar free, of course. After I consumed my morning pot of coffee, I made a large cup to go for my 20-mile morning commute.

My food cravings did not emerge until later in the day, usually squelched by some chocolate or whatever snacks were available. By late afternoon and early evening, I was hungry and did the most damage to my body by eat-ing carbs in any form. Throughout the workday, I often downed one can after another of diet soda to keep my energy level up so I could stay active and complete the mountain of work demanded of me.

My addictionsMy evils were easy to identify — coffee, artificial sweet-ener, diet soda and processed food. Armed for battle, I prioritized my list. Because we were asking students to address their addiction to soda, I would eliminate soda first. I would go two weeks without consuming a soda of any form, switching to 100 percent juices, not from concentrate or water. If I survived the first two weeks, I would calculate my capacity or passion to continue this professed journey.

The first week, I could hardly move. I managed to make it through my work because I still had coffee, but I was noticeably tired in the afternoons when I used high levels of caffeine for a second wind. It was not one of my most productive work weeks, but I survived. By the beginning of the following week, I felt a significant change and, upon the completion of two weeks, I was emerging from an artificially induced fog. I no longer craved sodas, and I was becoming productive without afternoon intervention.

Next on the list of evils, I would tackle my abuse of artificial sweeteners. I noticed once I gave up artificial sweeteners, my coffee wasn’t the same sweet treat in the early morning hours, and I wasn’t even sure I liked it in raw form. The assault on coffee, my most-dreaded addiction, started much more easily than anticipated. I substituted

Marsha carr-Lambert formerly served as superintendent of the grant county School district in Petersburg, W.Va.


morning drinks with a glass of heavy-pulp orange juice and a cup of either decaf tea or decaf, unflavored coffee if I wanted something hot. Keep in mind our relationship with food is much more than just nutritional in nature — we also have an emotional relationship that can be seasonal, according to Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto.

In several months, I went from a lifestyle poisoned with chemicals and preservatives to a healthier breakfast of orange juice and fresh fruit, to a lunch of salad and/or veggies and a similar dinner. When I need a snack, I devour unsalted nuts or unsweetened banana chips.

taste Buds revivedWhat I discovered was that my life did change. I no longer felt like a slave to the pronounced energy swings that guided my day. I maintained a steady and ongoing energy that was sufficient to carry me through my work without any drinks or false energy. I also slept more rest-fully and even felt happier.

But the greatest reward of all was my taste buds. I never would have believed taste buds could be numbed or dulled by poor eating habits. Suddenly I craved veg-gies. The cooked carrots tasted like they were soaked in sugar because I’ve discovered the natural sugar found in

them. Pineapples, oranges and apples are unbelievably sweet and satisfy my cravings.

Suddenly, all I could think about was a generation of students who have been raised on preservatives with taste buds so deadened they don’t know what it is to really taste food. How do we ever reach them when the adults in their lives continue to model such behavior?

I do not consider myself a role model for anyone, but I can tell you what happens when you alter your lifestyle. I love tasting food again, and I can actually taste food. I have lost weight, slowly but gradually.

More importantly, I no longer obsess over my weight. Suddenly how my body looks is not a key to survival. It is not a priority. That was an outcome that I never could have expected, although Pollan, in his informative 2008 New York Times bestseller, contends good nutrition will create a better balance in our mental alignments.

When I began to stop the insane eating habits, other aspects of my life changed, as well. I no longer experi-enced mood swings that led to increased spurts of anger. My shopping habits changed and, astonishingly, I began to save more money than I had ever done in years prior. I tripled my savings in three months — and without any sacrifice. It just happened as a result of altering my emotional stability due to my dependence on foods.

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acknowledgment FirstWhile I wasn’t a research subject like a laboratory rat with scientists documenting my every move and charting my feelings and energy level, I can tell you from my own testimony that the students and parents in my community must alter their lifestyles, too. Either that or we in public leadership must begin a whole new crusade to fight the war on obesity.

After sharing my newfound knowledge, my dentist spoke candidly during a recent office visit about his pro-fession seeing more and more dental problems associated with a combination of sugar and acidic drip on teeth that he believes is a derivative of certain soft drinks.

So how did I apply this wealth of new understanding to our school district’s fledgling wellness plan? For years I supported state initiatives, not because I had firsthand experience, but because I trusted those who passed down these laws. Now, I no longer am leading a nebulous cru-sade. My battles are real.

My own wellness journey has been spiritual in terms of honoring my own body, and I believe that students who exhibit poor eating habits will find their overall health benefitting if they pursued healthier lifestyles. I do not have to be convinced of the need for a wellness policy, and I am not passive when it comes to fingering groups

such as parent-teacher organizations, kindergarten parties or student events that violate the policy.

I understand our district’s wellness policy exists due to the increasing need to provide and promote better lifestyles for our students. I know firsthand the ill effects of what we are doing to this generation, and we are only beginning to recognize the real health concerns, dan-gers and costs. I now can support a policy I once imple-mented only as a duty outlined in my job description. I now believe in our policy and will fight for the continued care of our students.

So when a major soda company contract next comes across my office desk, it will be scrutinized to ensure it adheres to our guidelines. And I will go to bat for what I now believe to be one of the most important battles on behalf of students — the right to a better, healthier life.

This battle has multiple layers if we intend to fight. We can make a difference. We must find a starting point and make the necessary moves. Self-awareness and acknowl-edgment were the first steps. They were for me. n

Marsha carr-Lambert formerly served as superintendent of the grant county Schools in Petersburg, W.Va. E-mail: [email protected]

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Unprompted, an elementary school principal offers, “I used to go home exhausted at the end of the day. Juggling all the balls was taking its toll on me. Now, I can’t even keep track of how many balls there are, they’re dropping all around

me and I just can’t keep up.” A school board meeting room is packed with hundreds

of beleaguered teachers begging, “No more! We’ve had enough! We can’t take it any longer!”

A coaching session with a middle school principal begins with, “Sorry I’m late. I had a teacher in my office in tears. He’s so overwhelmed; he doesn’t think he’ll make it through the year.” Her sigh is heavy, her eyes tired. It’s only October.

trickle-down EffectsThese three scenarios occurred hundreds of miles apart,

in different states, within a span of three days. Each of these districts is in good academic standing, and all are relatively affluent communities with a relatively small percentage of their student populations living in poverty. If this is what stable, adequately resourced school districts are experiencing, what is the reality for our impoverished, highly mobile and low-performing districts?

Regardless of whether a school or district is on a No Child Left Behind list for failing to make adequate yearly progress, the sense of urgency caused by the federal law’s looming 2014 deadline for 100 percent proficiency and the increasingly challenging targets are generating consid-erable activity, without commensurate payoff in terms of results. There’s an interesting trickle-down effect occur-ring everywhere I go. Here’s how it typically plays out.

With all good intentions, the state descends with its mandates, programs and helpers.

a smart, sane and strategic route focuses principals and teachers on fewer high priorities

B y A N N e e . C O N Z e M I u S

Minimalistapproach

reform

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to


The district inundates their school sites with one ini-tiative after the next, heaping resources like layers of blankets onto the schools in need until they suffocate or just can’t move under the weight of it all.

The school principal, whose multiple plates are already too full, wakes up to hear the morning talk show host maligning the school and its teachers, demanding that something be done!

In the name of empowerment, delegation and capac-ity building, the principal downloads her to-do list to a few loyal but unsuspecting teacher leaders who come in early, stay late and can barely find time in their day to visit the restroom.

Pushed by FearOverload, confusion, chaos and incoherence typify the plight of educators and society in general these days. The

unfortunate truth is that our response as a nation and as a profession has been to do more of the same, not less with what’s best. It is what those in the quality movement refer to as tactics that reach a mile wide but go only an inch deep, as opposed to strategic actions that go a mile deep and an inch wide. We’re fooling ourselves if we think we can continue this frantic pace and that performance will improve.

We are at an important crossroad in education. With the pending reauthorization of the Elementary and Sec-ondary Education Act, commonly referred to as NCLB, we need to examine with fierce honesty the impact it has had on our schools, not just on the test scores, but the toll it has taken on the people: principals, teachers and students.

Let’s start with what’s right about NCLB. Certainly, it is a powerful piece of legislation that has gotten the


attention of just about everyone in the country. It has changed the nature of the conversation among educators. Without NCLB, we might still be under the illusion our performance as a nation is just fine, suggesting we ought to just keep doing what we’ve always done. We might never have discovered just how many children we really have been leaving behind.

For whatever good NCLB has done, we must still ask the Dr. Phil question, “So how’s that working for you?” Education Week published an article in April 2007 by Lynn Olson titled “Skills Gap on State, Federal Tests Grows, Study Finds.” The newspaper compared test results from 12 states with results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. The comparison called into ques-tion not only the rate of progress in closing the achieve-ment gap, but whether states were lowering the bar for passing state tests.

More recently, Diane Ravitch, a research professor of education at New York University, found the following: “In long-term trends, the achievement gap between white and minority students has hardly budged over the past decade. Although average scores are up for 9-year-olds and 13-year-olds in reading and mathematics between 2004 and 2008, the rate of improvement is actually smaller than it was in the previous period measured, from 1999-2004” (Education Week, June 10, 2009).

In theory, NCLB is a good thing. But theory and legislation don’t cause deep systemic change. Legislation may ignite changes in behavior in the short term, but like any externally generated mandate that uses fear as its motivational technique, substantive, sustainable change is unlikely. What is more likely is that the system will find a way to adjust itself to alleviate the tension rather than change itself to comply with the mandate. Furthermore, if there isn’t a process to engage people in owning the change at a deep, systemic level, any short-term results that may be attributed to the mandate are quickly wiped away when the source of the fear is removed.

For a moment, assume NCLB was a fully funded man-date, had attainable objectives for those of our students with verifiable learning deficits, incorporated the use of authentic, formative assessments and was accompanied by a multitude of resources to help teachers improve or enhance their instruction. Would that close the achieve-ment gap? Probably not. We’d still be operating inside incoherent systems, within largely unchanged relation-ships, scrambling to meet an external mandate with too many helping hands working separately on too many

initiatives with little or no alignment of efforts. This is the reality experienced by our principals, teachers and students.

So the question facing policymakers is, “Do modest improvements justify the emotional toll NCLB is having on the people in the system?” However, the question for education leaders is, “What needs to happen so teachers and principals can concentrate on creating authentic, high-quality learning experiences for their students?” That is the systemic transformational question.

real changeFor professional educators, NCLB served as an important wake-up call. The emperor has seen the naked truth. The alarms all have been activated. NCLB has done its job.

Educators need to take it from here. What we need now is to reignite the passion and commitment that brought educators to the profession in the first place. We need to move away from a compliance model toward one that builds efficacy and leadership among teachers, engages teachers and principals in reflective and collab-orative dialogue around valid, reliable data, and creates focus and coherence throughout our school systems.

We’ve known what should be done for a long time. Kurt Lewin, an organizational psychologist and researcher, studied the psychology and sociology of work in the early 1900s. He took Frederick Taylor’s scientific management theories (the factory model after which our current school structures are fashioned) and built a rationale and methodology for transforming the work system by involving the people doing the work in col-laborative problem solving that included setting goals and planning actions based on data.

What is both amusing and frustrating is the fact these ideas have been around for over 100 years and we’re still talking about them as if they’re new. Now we need to take what we know and start to act on it.

Sustaining reform The SMART acronym (specific, measurable, attainable, results-oriented and time-bound), as it applies to goal setting, has been used in business for decades. SMART goals now are showing up in the education world, as well. District strategic plans, school improvement plans, and even grade-, department-, and team-level plans include SMART goals.

Creating these goals is an important step in helping teachers and principals stay focused on student learning. Goals give direction to individuals and teams so they can be specific and intentional in their work. However, while having such goals is beneficial, if writing them is simply an exercise to meet the SMART criteria, they will have limited power or leverage for change.

Imagine what might happen if an entire system could not only have SMART goals but could apply this approach to every activity? What if we added a second “S” to make our goals both specific and strategic?

“What is both amusing and frustrating is the fact these ideas have been around for over 100 years and we’re still talking about them as if they’re new.”


When it comes to being strategic, five goal-setting qualities determine the power or leverage of the goal:

l Goals developed collaboratively are more strategic than those set by individuals with no input.

l Goals reaching out beyond a year or two are more strategic than those focusing on short-term change.

l Goals addressing a few high-priority problems are more strategic than lists of goals attempting to tackle all problems at once.

l Goals speaking to the organization as a whole are more strategic than those focusing on only one aspect.

l Goals vertically and horizontally aligned are more strategic than those unconnected or potentially at cross purposes with other organizational goals.

collaborative ProcessesDeveloping SMART goals collaboratively, based on a critical analysis of multiple sources of data within a pro-cess that engages a team in examining and improving their practice (curriculum, instruction and assessment) is a higher-order activity than simply writing the goal. That’s because good process techniques are brought to the goal-setting endeavor. These techniques engage people in conversations that build both commitment and ownership of the goal and the strategies the staff members select to achieve their goals.

While visiting elementary schools in Colorado, I asked teams of teachers and their principals what was different about their conversations today compared with conversa-tions they were having five years ago. They were quick to respond with fairly clear distinctions:

l “There’s much more use of data with an emphasis on learning, less on grading. Our conversations have more purpose, more focus, and we’re questioning our current practice. Staff development is more relevant.”

l “Working together on one goal creates consistency in meaning and challenges us to have higher standards.”

This kind of goal-setting practice changes the con-versation among educators in qualitatively different ways than NCLB has been able to do. Both the content and the process differ because the relationships differ. These conversations occur within a community where teachers and principals learn together in their pursuit of establish-ing and achieving a common goal. They also include self-driven monitoring and accountability mechanisms for achieving the goal within agreed-upon time frames.

Short-term LimitsShort-term goals are like fire starters. They bring quick energy and a flash of activity to what might otherwise be a complacent environment. But if all we have are small, short-term and relatively easily attained goals, significant change is unlikely. Our education enterprise needs more than a few small fires. In fact, our tendency to set many small fires is, in part, why we are experiencing a sense of chaos today.

A goal worthy of pursuit is one that will fundamentally

change important outcomes. For significant breakthroughs to occur, we need a long-term strategy with sustainable, goal-driven action. This is where a leader’s focus and per-severance can be so important.

I asked a middle school principal what his secret was in keeping all of the separate departments in his school on the same page with their long-range schoolwide goal. “It all has to do with where I put my eyes,” he answered. “If they see that my attention is focused on the goal, that’s where they tend to focus. It’s my job to make sure our goal never leaves our field of vision.”

SMART goals are based on the organization’s greatest areas of need, or GAN. This approach works because of the Pareto principle, a statistical concept from the quality movement that eliminates the need to solve every prob-lem one-by-one. (See related story above.) Instead, if we attend to the vital few things that will have the greatest impact, a whole system of problems can be addressed simultaneously, allowing the efficiency of our time and resources to be maximized.

Focusing on the greatest areas of need leads to the development of high-priority goals and strategies that affect and improve the entire system at every level. Incor-porating the principle of GAN into goals at the classroom

Pareto Principle in EducationWhen my colleagues and I work with schools, we ask the educators to focus their SMART goals on just a few important student learning needs. These are known as the “vital few” high-leverage areas where the largest gaps between vision and current reality exist.

By focusing on only the vital few needs, greater gains can be achieved, not only in the goal area, but in all other parts of the system that are affected by the achievement of that goal.

This is the underlying benefit of the Pareto principle, first developed by Vilfredo Pareto, a 14th-century economist who discovered that 20 percent of the people held 80 percent of the wealth. The idea was adapted by Joseph Juran in the 1980s as part of the burgeoning quality movement to describe the phenomenon of improvements occurring across the board when focusing on just a few of the problems.

Juran, an organizational development authority, was the first to write about the importance of focusing on the vital few to take care of the “essential many.” The trick is to isolate those that are truly the vital few. The answer is in the data.

— anne Conzemius

“High-priority planning and goal setting, using formative assessment techniques to monitor results, will lead to more efficient and deeper levels of learning for teachers and students.”


level allows teachers to be strategic in their instructional decisions. That can even save time, as one teacher dis-covered when she focused on a few key objectives that helped her students understand deeper concepts more quickly. That meant she didn’t have to dwell on those concepts for days and days, but could move on to higher-order concepts and standards.

High-priority planning and goal setting, using for-mative assessment techniques to monitor results, will lead to more efficient and deeper levels of learning for teachers and students. One elementary teacher put it this way: “Having a clear focus sends a strong message about priorities. That helps me and the kids make bet-ter decisions.”

goal alignmentA systemwide goal-development and goal-management process brings coherence and power to the organization’s improvement efforts. How can a district, school or a team of teachers design high-leverage interventions to meet the needs of all students if

l each doesn’t view itself as an important part of an integrated whole?

l each doesn’t have a common goal that galvanizes the efforts of people within the system?

l each doesn’t have the full support and commitment of the organization’s leaders, including those responsible for carrying out the plan?

Without a systemic process, what we end up with is individual parts of the system (schools, grade levels, departments or course-specific teams) doing their own thing in random, unconnected ways. That’s not much

different than the status quo. Aligning the system of goals vertically and horizontally

throughout the district is what propels systemic break-through improvement. Alignment differs from top-down goal setting where the central office establishes its man-date and then schools follow suit with goals that comply.

Here’s how the alignment of goals works as a systemic network of relationships. The schoolwide SMART goal is the linking mechanism for vertical articulation, con-necting the district’s vision and goals to what ultimately happens in the classroom. The schoolwide goal is also the mechanism for creating coherence throughout the school from one grade level to the next or from one department or content area to the next.

Ultimately, SMART goals will be yet another failed attempt at reform if they are not driven and owned by classroom teachers and their students. Teachers are the pivot point for alignment. Goals set by teacher teams are based on the needs and goals of the young learners in their classrooms. They reflect the overall schoolwide goal and align with the standards, goals and assessments set forth in the curriculum.

Focus on FewAs the old saying goes, “If you have dozens of priorities, you have no priorities.” When schools have dozens of initiatives, what they end up with is a lot of startups, a lot of activity and ultimately a lot of exhausted people, with little or no long-term benefit for students.

Getting focused and staying focused are our greatest challenges and our greatest hope in education. It is coun-terintuitive in our existing school cultures and difficult in our current time structures. And it is nearly impossible within a larger system that itself cannot get focused. If we have any chance of closing the achievement gap, we have no choice but to get smart about what we focus on and what we act upon.

Principals need help from the central office to know which things are OK to let go. Central-office administra-tors can model strategic thinking while working on system issues that need to change. This will enable teachers and principals to invest their time and energies on doing the right work focused on their few highest priorities. n

anne conzemius is an education consultant with QLd Learning in Fitchburg, Wis., which she co-founded. E-mail: [email protected]

“Without a systemic process, what we end up with is individual parts of the system (schools, grade levels, departments or course-specific teams) doing their own thing in random, unconnected ways.”

anne conzemius is co-founder of QLd Learning in Fitchburg, Wis.


G U E S T C o L U M N

Defining the Word ‘Sacrifice’B y G A R y A . B u R t O N

E veryone agrees our local,

state and national econ-

omies are under great

stress. Daily news reports

announce the latest round of

negative financial indicators.

Unemployment is steadily rising, the number of home foreclosures continues to make headlines, health care costs are escalating, retirement funds are in jeop-ardy, stock prices continue to fluctuate and so on. Predictions for the days ahead are anything but optimistic.

You don’t have to listen carefully to hear an underlying current of fear in conversations in the aisles of the local supermarket and corporate boardrooms. My 90-year-old parents may remember liv-ing through the Great Depression and the widespread accompanying hardships, but few of us have experienced hard economic times. If you are younger than 65, many tales of “going without” are simply elder family members’ memories that accent how well off most Americans are today. I recall being told of cardboard that filled the holes in my parents’ shoes, a single orange shared among many siblings and one gift per child on Christmas Day. It all sounded rather dismal to me.

While new national leadership is cause for genuine hope, most citizens believe until the economy improves and the job picture brightens, the days ahead will undoubtedly involve collective pain and suffering for many throughout the community. Calls to confront these challenges head-on are increasing in volume, and related conversa-tions are taking place at all governmental levels and within many households.

Frequent referenceI’ve noticed that the word “sacrifice” is common to many of these conversations. I hear it repeatedly. Politicians, evening network news reports and budgetary discus-sions frequently cite the need for public and

private sacrifice in the difficult days ahead. Few believe we can return to the inefficien-cies of the past, and many citizens, both young and old, seem ready, if not eager, to make the sacrifices needed to regain control of the economy and our future.

With this in mind, consider the word sacrifice. How do you define it? Is a sacri-fice something you experience or go with-out, or is it something that others must give up or endure? Obviously, there is a big difference. Are our citizens willing to make personal sacrifices to preserve nec-essary or highly desired town and school services? Or are community members will-ing to sacrifice these services because they believe they are no longer affordable?

In most situations, the choice is not that simple. Do we want a public library or not? Should taxpayers support athletic teams at the high school or, starting now, should the students and their parents assume the cost of fielding these teams? Should town roads be well maintained year round? I’m not sug-gesting the answer to these questions is a simple yes or no. Proper responses are prob-ably somewhere in between.

I suspect, too, that each answer involves a willingness, or lack thereof, to reach deeper into one’s pocket to support these services — and for some that is the sacrifice.

defining MomentI’d like to propose the idea of “shared sacri-fices” and recommend this concept be intro-duced into conversations whenever and wherever possible. The notion of what is being sacrificed and by whom is particularly important when discussing school budgets. Local voters, be they the parents of school-age children or citizens without any direct ties to the local schools, need to know what school officials are willing to sacrifice, even as they ask local residents to continue to support particular programs or positions that might otherwise fall victim to budget cuts.

The claim that public schools are “tax-ing people out of their homes” or taking advantage of taxpayers without young children must be blunted with evidence of what schools are willing to give up to preserve instructional quality and basic

school services. Shared sacrifices must be explained in clear, concise terms that reinforce the fact that funding of public education is more than an annual expense. It is an investment in the education and well-being of our children.

Little disagreement exists that these are difficult economic times for almost everyone. Nonetheless, we must reach consensus on what levels of publicly funded services will best serve the entire community. This will require honest dia-logue about police and fire protection, a range of school activities, recreational programs and services for senior citizens. Reaching agreement on all these services may not be easy as opinions differ widely on what is needed and what is affordable. Acknowledging these differences, I ask you to consider your definition of sacrifice as this will ultimately define your com-munity and our nation.

gary Burton is superintendent of the Wayland Public Schools in Wayland, Mass. E-mail: [email protected]

“the notion of what is being sacrificed and by whom is particularly important when discussing school budgets.”

Coming next month inTHE SCHooL ADMINISTRAToR

kkk Robert Kaplan of the Harvard Business School on the use of a balanced score-card in a school system

kkk Value-added assessment’s implementa-tion challenges

kkk Guest column: The frustration of un - funded interscholastic sports mandates

kkk Guest column: A superintendent in Tennessee goes undercover to catch truants

kkk Profile: Deborah Jewell-Sherman, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education



Practicing 21st-Century Skills Back in the ’80sB y N A N C y W I N G e N B A C H

I s the dialogue about 21st-

century skills a new con-

versation? I believe not.

We are just now framing the vocabulary to describe and define what many of our teachers do intuitively and what one par-ticular organization has been doing since the early 1980s.

Creativity, innovation, collaboration, life skills, information technology. These certainly are not new terms to those of us involved in Destination ImagiNation, or DI (www.idodi.org). These terms reflect actions embedded in this wonderful extra-curricular program in which student teams take on a challenge, research it, design solutions, cast the solution into a story

that relays the message, add music, use technology and apply research results. Then each team performs the solution story within eight minutes.

Imagine this: A five-student elemen-tary school team slowly unfolds and raises six-by-eight-foot flattened wood frames they have created, and the set of their skit takes shape as the young moderator begins the story. Famous literary figures appear in their own milieu created by the intricate swivel of screens to change the backdrop. The audience gets caught up as the characters come together to solve a “DI-lemma.”

Or consider this: A half dozen teenag-ers crowd around a table with straws, tin foil, rubber bands and a couple of mailing labels. They are tasked to build a tower as tall as possible that must rest on a beach

ball without falling. This task must be accomplished within five minutes. This is a typical DI instant challenge.

In my experiences with the DI teams over the years, I have found concrete evidence of what children can do, unex-pected outcomes to problem resolution, emotional responses to student work, and stories about how the teams formed, worked together and transformed ideas. Students experience failed attempts, rede-sign and teamwork. They are evaluated on their successes. And every challenge links to our national education standards.

a Working VocabularyDestination ImagiNation definitely reflects 21st-century skills in action as described in the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. Participants engage in creative problem

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solving, applying content to produce solutions. In today’s world of expanding knowledge, we cannot possibly teach all the content, so we must train students in the processes for finding, integrating, transferring and applying knowledge in an authentic experience.

Using research to support the solution, using technology to enhance the process of resolution and presentation, using team-work to extract and apply the individual skills in the various tasks and the final product, these student teams have been purposefully integrating 21st-century skills into an authentic learning and problem-solving experience.

Back in the 1980s and ’90s, we were engaging students in transformational, hands-on learning through authentic activities and encouraging and support-ing the exercise of innovation, creativity, problem solving, critical thinking and col-laboration. The education community is just now catching up to what Destination ImagiNation has been enabling for nearly three decades.

The ideas framed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills and given urgency by President Obama are lent a working vocabulary through the activities of Des-tination ImagiNation. So we don’t need to start back at the beginning. If we look at what is happening in the thousands of schools running DI programs, we will find students already engaged in integrat-ing 21st-century skills into their work. As we seek to embed these skills into core academics, we should look at how that happens for the students in the Destina-tion ImagiNation program. These are the desired skills in action.

My commitmentWhen I started with Destination ImagiNa-tion in 1983 as a volunteer appraiser for the

competition’s world finals in Akron, Ohio, I was blown away by the demonstration of talent, creativity and problem-solving abil-ity of the participating youngsters. Since that initial experience, I have continued to be involved personally in the program’s continuous growth. The value to partici-pants is substantial, and I actively support Destination ImagiNation wherever I work, including the district where I’m the super-intendent today. I now serve on the orga-nization’s international board of trustees.

Today, in our commitment to prepare students for success in the 21st century, I believe the experiences offered through participation in Destination ImagiNation are right on target and aligned with what we need students to learn and be able to do.

nancy Wingenbach is superintendent of the orange city Schools in Pepper Pike, ohio, and a member of the board of education in the Highland School district in Medina county, ohio. E-mail: [email protected]

“Students experience failed attempts, redesign and teamwork. they are evaluated on their successes. And every challenge links to our national education standards.”

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The English Problem in the Digital AgeB y M A R K B A u e R L e I N

E nglish teachers have a

special problem with

students. Other fields

ask them to study unusual

and distant things, cells, cube

roots and world wars.

English teachers ask them to study the most nearby and commonplace things, words and sentences. “Why bother?” many kids wonder. What’s the point of analyzing a speech by Romeo and parsing a lyric by Emily Dickinson? Words are words, and if we get the point, let’s move on.

The attitude makes for a double duty.

Not only must teachers acquaint students to The Scarlet Letter and Hamlet, but they also must show why and how Hawthorne’s and Shakespeare’s words and sentences are different from, and better than, everybody else’s. Students don’t like the second step. It resembles the difference between telling a joke and explaining a joke. One’s funny, the other isn’t.

Speed rulesWith the digital age, the English teacher’s task has turned into Mount Everest. Kids see and say more words than ever before, but their texts and posts and e-mails have only made them less disposed to study the medium. They read, write and respond at lightning pace. Last January, Nielsen Media counted 2,272 texts messages per month for the average cell-phone-wield-

ing teenager. Nine months later, Nielsen raised the tally to 2,900. According to Harris Interactive, half of kids 8-12 years old own one, and four out of five teens do, too. Pew Research Center reports 60 percent of teens have a social networking profile, and the National School Boards Association clocks them at nine hours of networking per week.

The rehearsals add up to an accultura-tion. By the time they reach senior year of high school, students have internal-ized a sense of expression that teachers must labor mightily to dislodge. It can be summed up in the epithet “Instant Mes-saging.” The message matters most, and speed of delivery is essential. The teacher’s slowdown of textual analysis hits them as a contrary experience. Their verbal intel-ligence has been formed in a crucible of

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keyboards and “send” buttons, where lan-guage is all about communication, not craft. And the kids love it. After winning the $50,000 first prize in the 2009 LG U.S. National Texting Championship, 15-year-old Kate Moore declared, “Let your kid text during dinner! Let your kid text dur-ing school! It pays off.” She herself runs up 14,000 texts each month.

Many educators don’t see any problem with digital genres. They address them with a ready tactic: Bring more tools into English class. More wikis, blogs and chat rooms should go on the syllabus. A fair example appears as a report from the National Council of Teachers of English titled “Writing in the 21st Century,” a laudatory rendition of digital composing that hails it as “the beginning of a new era in literacy” (see www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Press/Yancey_final.pdf).

Educators particularly like Web 2.0 because it empowers the users, making them more participatory and creative with words. For teachers not to encourage and facilitate it is to impose the old and tired model of “I teach, you listen.”

Flawed outcomesFor all of their enthusiasm and for all the obvious miracles digital technology has brought about, a giant question sits smack in the center of every discussion of adequate yearly performance. Teenagers read and write more than ever before, and digital technology has enabled each one of them to become an amateur composer, but why haven’t academic outcomes followed? Where is the evidence that Tweeting and texting improve their skills?

Here is recent evidence to the contrary: l NAEP reading scores for 12th graders

are down since the early 1990s and flat since 2002. Whereas 80 percent of them scored “basic” or higher in 1992, 73 per-cent of them did in 2005.

l On the SAT, critical reading scores have fallen four points since 1999, and writ-ing scores have fallen four points since 2006 (when they started issuing that section).

l On the ACT exam, from 2006 to 2009, the percentage of test-takers who met college-readiness benchmarks in Eng-lish dropped two percentage points, while those meeting benchmarks in reading were flat. Only two-thirds of them were ready for college work in English and barely one-half (53 percent) in reading.

l In a survey of college professors, The Chronicle of Higher Education found only 6 percent saying students enter their classes “very well prepared” in writing, 10 percent of them “very well prepared” in reading. When asked to compare students today to students 10 years ago, professors rated today’s cohort “not as well prepared” over “better prepared” by 2-1 (45 percent to 22 percent).

a resistance ZoneThese dismaying results set the optimism of digital advocates in critical relief. Against the urge to digitalize more and more student reading and writing, they pose the troubling prospect that tools and devices that have descended like an avalanche into young people’s lives bear elements and foster practices that hinder their English class achievement.

Before we go any further in digitalizing every square foot of the schoolhouse, edu-cators should examine what we might call the “relevance assumption”— that is, the belief that the best way to prepare students for the real world is to bring as much of the real world, including students’ out-of-class activities, into the classroom.

This time, in English, perhaps the opposite is the case. A better way may be to make the English classroom a resis-tance zone, a place where reading and writing slow down, where verbal craft is revered, and where, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the difference between the right word and the almost right word is, indeed, acknowledged as the difference between a lightning bug and lightning.

Mark Bauerlein is a professor of English at Emory University in atlanta and author of The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, or Don’t Trust Anyone Under 30. E-mail: [email protected]

“teenagers read and write more than ever before … but why haven’t academic outcomes followed? Where is the evidence that tweeting and texting improve their skills?”

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Destination ImagiNation is an exhilarating after-school activity where student teams solve mind-bending Challenges. Our Challenges vary in subject matter — from science and technical topics to theater and improvisation — and best of all, they meet educational standards and incorporate 21st-century skills.

Starting a Destination ImagiNation program in your school is affordable and accessible, and students of all ages, backgrounds and learning styles can par-ticipate. Give your students a chance to discover their unique problem-solving styles — give them Destination ImagiNation.

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EXEcUtiVE coMMittEE 2009-2010

(terms expire June 30 of the year indicated)

PresidentMarkT.Bielang

SuperintendentPaw Paw Public SchoolsPaw Paw, Mich. (2010)

immediate Past PresidentRandallH.Collins

SuperintendentWaterford Public SchoolsWaterford, Conn. (2010)

President-ElectEdgarB.HatrickIII

SuperintendentLoudoun County Public Schools

Ashburn, Va. (2010)

MEMBErSJean-ClaudeBrizard(2011)Jerome E. Colonna (2012)Joseph J. Gertsema (2012)Robert E. Gillum (2011)Benny L. Gooden (2011)Judith A. Johnson (2010)Kathleen R. Kelley (2011)Wilfredo T. Laboy (2010)

Ronald L. Lankford (2012) Jack L. McCulley (2011)Randy Mohundro (2010)

Frederick S. Morton IV (2011)Molly S. Ringo (2011)

Darline P. Robles (2012)Paul A. Shaw (2010)

Frank H. Sippy (2012)Robin W. Spears (2010)

DanielA.DomenechAASA Executive Director

(Ex Officio)

MaryA.Francis(2010)Association of State Executives Liaison

(Ex Officio)

P R E S I D E N T ’ S C o R N E R

Is It Time To Pick Up the Pace?B y M A R K t . B I e L A N G

This past October, I was in Chicago to watch my daughter Andrea run her first marathon. Almost any marathoner will tell you that pace is the key to running a successful race. Knowing your time at the halfway

point helps you decide whether to keep that pace, slow down or kick it up a notch. I witnessed first hand the role pace plays in reaching a goal.

Elite runners have pacers who run alongside them to help keep them at their desired pace. These elite runners begin with the end in mind. They determine what they want as their final finish time and establish benchmarks along the way. Then, throughout the race, they assess and adjust their pace in relation to their goal. Other runners, such as Andrea, do the same, but with a support system that is far less sophisticated.

The winner of this year’s Chicago Marathon, Sammy Wanjiru, was out to set a new world record. He knew that at the midway point he needed to hit a time of 62 minutes — and he did. However, at some time during the second half of the race, his lone remaining pacer began to slow down. Sammy made the bold deci-sion to sprint ahead of his pacer and two rivals and run alone in the lead.

That risky move, along with a couple of well-timed surges put him permanently in the lead but jeopardized his goal — the world record. With the race well in hand and realizing he could not break the world record, Sammy slowed his pace and

cruised to the finish line waving to the crowd. Unknown to him, he eclipsed the Chicago Marathon record by just one sec-ond, which netted him a $100,000 bonus. Imagine if he would have abandoned his pace and started his victory cruise a few paces earlier.

As we near the midpoint in our school year, it’s a good time to check our pace, assess where we are now and adjust our pace, if necessary, so we can finish strong at the end of the school year. Here are some lessons to keep in mind:

l Keeping pace requires skill devel-opment. Am I keeping up with my own professional development and the devel-opment of those who support my efforts?

l Keeping pace requires specific goals. Are the goals I set realistic and will they stretch the organization and me?

l Keeping pace requires concentration. Am I staying focused on my goals? Am I doing things that are distracting me from my goals?

l Keeping pace requires help from oth-ers. Are the people around me aware of the goals? Are they pushing me or holding me back?

Our students trust us and rely on us to equip them with what they need to finish at their winning pace. Perhaps one of the best things we can do for the children we serve is to make sure we’re on pace so they are on pace to finish their year successfully.

Andrea, like most of the 48,000 other runners in the Chicago Marathon, will never set a world record. However, she may set new personal records for herself. Isn’t that what it’s all about for our students — reaching new heights, improving personal performance and achieving personal goals? Students need help from their peers and the adults in their lives to keep a winning pace. They need our help, guidance and direc-tion, and especially our encouragement.

As you continue through the school year, keep an eye on your pace. It should be the pace that helps you meet your goals — although you may find an occasional sprint is in order to keep you going to the end.

Mark Bielang is aaSa president for 2009-10. E-mail: [email protected]

“Perhaps one of the best things we can do for the children we serve is to make sure we’re on pace so they are on pace to finish their year successfully.”


E X E C U T I V E P E R S P E C T I V E

Informed by Sicilian and Maltese EducatorsB y D A N I e L A . D O M e N e C H

America is in the midst of transforming our systems of education. Faced with increased global competition and a persistent achievement gap at home, the Obama administration is look-ing to move beyond No

Child Left Behind. In our search for solutions, we should

consider those education systems in the world that can provide us with good ideas on how to resolve some of the challenges we face. This fall, a group of Ameri-can educators went to Sicily and Malta looking for answers. Over 36 years, the International Invitational Seminar on Schooling has enabled educators to visit school programs abroad. On this trip we witnessed programs that could be potential models for changes American education leaders are trying to make.

targeting VocationsReducing the dropout rate and increasing high school completion are major goals. I was recently in Jackson, Miss., speaking to a large gathering of the state’s superintend-ents. After my remarks I was approached by a gentleman who thanked me for being there but then took me to task. He indi-cated he had been a superintendent for many years but was now retired. For years he had fought to provide his minority stu-dents with equal educational opportuni-ties. Apparently, back in the day, there was an attempt to place minority students in vocational programs as opposed to placing them in the more challenging academic track.

I had stated in my remarks that one-third of our students who drop out each year and fail to graduate from high school could be helped by career and technical programs that might motivate many stu-dents to stay in school and graduate.

This was not the first time I had heard this concern expressed, and I suspect it may be one of the reasons why vocational education has fallen out of grace in recent years. However, by insisting every student should be in a college preparatory pro-

gram, we are ignoring reality and doing nothing to provide the thousands of stu-dents who drop out with the relevant education they want and the ability to learn a marketable skill while they are still in school.

On the tiny island of Malta, young men and women are afforded the oppor-tunity to learn a skill, a trade or a profes-sion at government expense. The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology offers an impressive number of programs at no cost to the students who are also paid a stipend to attend the program. The students have the opportunity to matricu-late for a number of levels, ranging from assistant craftsman to advanced techni-cian, or proceed to the university for a bachelor of arts degree. There was a time when minority students were tracked into vocational programs, but career and technical academies today require their graduates to meet the same academic benchmarks as other students receiving a high school diploma, while providing them with marketable skills right out of high school. Malta’s program is a consid-erable financial investment, but one that pays huge dividends in the form of a well-educated and well-trained workforce.

Education WelfareAASA has focused on the concept of edu-cating the total child. We believe external factors significantly affect a child’s ability to learn. Child care, early childhood edu-cation, health services, housing, parental involvement and parent education are all factors that can greatly contribute to the persistent achievement gap that plagues our schools.

While in Catania, Sicily, we visited a school in one of the poorest sections of the city. The school is proof that pov-erty is the factor that adversely affects achievement, not ethnicity or race. The children were mostly white and few were immigrants, but all were poor and suf-fered from being uneducated, socially maladjusted and inclined toward crimi-nal activity.

The school, referred to as an educa-tional welfare center, is operated by the

Cirino La Rosa Foundation. The center is an excellent model of an entire com-munity coming together to help disad-vantaged children. Municipal and welfare agencies, businesses, community groups and foundations, and faith-based groups (in Italy, the Catholic Church) jointly provide for the needs of students. Even local high school and college students get into the act in a program called Guardian Angels. The students volunteer to men-tor a child at the school. One Guardian Angel spoke passionately about her expe-rience, pointing to the tremendous fulfill-ment she received from working with her mentee. Admittedly, these community efforts do not always succeed, but more often than not their attempts pay off as students graduate and many go on to col-leges, universities or technical academies.

Next month, in Phoenix, Ariz., AASA is holding the 2010 National Conference on Education. We have an impressive array of speakers that will address many topics, including the education of the total child and the need to improve high school completion rates. We are honored to have Secretary of Education Arne Duncan join-ing us, along with best-selling author Mal-colm Gladwell, Harlem Children’s Zone founder Geoffrey Canada and CNBC’s Mika Brzezinski.

If you have not yet registered for the Feb. 11-13 conference, please do so. We look forward to continuing our conversa-tion with you in Phoenix.

daniel domenech is aaSa executive director. E-mail: [email protected]

“In our search for solutions, we should consider those education systems in the world that can provide us with good ideas on how to resolve some of the challenges we face.”


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R E S o U R C E B A N K

ABSTRACTLatino SuperintendentsThe small number of Latinos serving as superintendents can be attributed to the small number of Latinos serving as administrators at all levels in education, according to a recently completed doctoral dissertation.

Among the major findings in the study by Rafael H. Escobar for his Ed.D. at Uni-versity of Southern California were these:

l Mentoring can provide aspiring administrators with guidance in career path development as well as providing feedback on a course of action.

l Race and ethnicity are viewed as positive attributes that provide a value-added bonus to the prospective candidate.

Research cited by Escobar indicates that with greater minority representation throughout the ranks of education, there is a commensurate academic achievement for students, although being of the same race as that of the student body is not a prerequisite for success.

Copies of the dissertation, “How Lati-nos Ascend to the Superintendency,” can be ordered from ProQuest at 800-521-0600 or [email protected].

BITS & PIECESFinal Bracey reportThe 2009 edition of the annual “Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Edu-cation” offers a sober assessment of three popular education reforms — “high-qual-ity” schools, mayoral control and the push for higher standards — and finds all of them wanting.

This represents the last critical analy-sis from celebrated education researcher Gerald Bracey, who died unexpectedly at age 69 in October.

The 18th Bracey Report was published by the Education and the Public Inter-est Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State Univer-sity. It’s available at http://epicpolicy.org/publication/Bracey-Report.

Previous editions were published in Phi Delta Kappan.

Stuttering resourceThe Stuttering Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the prevention and improved treatment of stuttering,

has created a new brochure, “8 Tips for Teachers.”

This free brochure provides educators with advice on how to approach a student with a stutter and how best to assist. A resource kit on stuttering is available.

More information is available at www.stutteringhelp.org.

Pre-K EducationThe Hechinger Institute on Education and the Media released a new publica-tion, “Covering the Pre-K Landscape: New Investments in Our Littlest Learn-ers,” addressing pre-K research, pedagogy, classroom quality and related topics.

This guide follows the growth of the movement and push toward high-quality preschool and child care, due in large part to new findings in neuroscience, child development and economics.

Access www.tc.columbia.edu/hechinger.

research UseA new study of national policymakers and practitioners examines the use of sci-entific evidence in education decisions, something mandated under No Child Left Behind.

The study, commissioned by the Wil-liam T. Grant Foundation, was conducted by Education Northwest (formerly North-west Regional Educational Laboratory). The research team used interviews of 65 influential leaders in policy and practice.

The key finding: Evidence is used less frequently and given less credence than other sources of information. Participants preferred information from peers, profes-sional organizations and personal experi-ence.

For the full report, visit www.nwrel.org/researchuse/report.pdf.

coach EducationThree new Coach Education courses are available through the National Federation of State High School Associations.

The courses deal with coaching volley-ball, spirit safety certification and teaching sports skills.

The NFHS Coach Education Pro-gram was started in 2007. All courses are detailed at www.nfhslearn.com.

testing trendsA yearlong study by the Center on Educa-tion Policy focused on students achieving “proficient” performance levels on state tests. The report by the independent nonprofit organization is part of its third annual report on state testing scores since the No Child Left Behind Act took effect.

Data are analyzed and synthesized so that they may be used to inform policy discussions on education.

The study, “Is the Emphasis on ‘Profi-ciency’ Shortchanging Higher- and Lower-Achieving Students?” can be found at www.cep-dc.org.

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B o o K R E V I E W S

Never Too old to Teach: How Middle-Aged Wisdom Can Transform young Minds in the Classroom by neil M. Goldman, Rowman & Littlefield Educa-tion, Lanham, Md., 2009, 327 pp., $36.95 softcover

Author Neil M. Goldman was born to be a teacher, although he had no interest in becom-ing one. He spent 15 years profession-ally in the world of high technology before moving into a classroom.

In Never Too Old to Teach, Goldman blends humor and a wisdom that comes with age and experience. As he says, “One of the advantages of being older is a certain level of self-confidence and mental stability that I don’t think is pos-sible to have when you’re 22.”

This book chronicles his student teaching and his first year as a high school special education teacher. Gold-man’s deep caring and his desire to help his students become self-sufficient citi-zens and not just high school graduates raises the impact of his teaching and what he has to share.

This is not just a book for those com-ing into teaching later in life, although those who fit that description will imme-diately identify with much of what the writer shares. Why change careers? Because, he says, “when you’re a teacher, you realize that you matter.”

Goldman uses anecdotes and illustrative stories to make his points, and his wit and experience make each story memorable.

The first year is not easy with students who talk back, parents who tear up notes he sends home, master teachers who are anything but masters and colleagues who have burned out. However, Gold-man manages to make every obstacle a learning experience. He maintains a positive and supportive attitude toward his students and says, “Maybe the system will break me, too, and make me hold popularity as more important than aca-demic rigor. But it hasn’t yet.”reviewed by Bob Schultz, instructor, Chapman University, Davis, Calif.

Reforming Boston Schools, 1930-2006: overcoming Corruption and Racial Segregationby Joseph Marr Cronin, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, N.Y., 2008, 292 pp., $87.44 hardcover

Joseph Marr Cro-nin, former Massa-chusetts secretary of educational affairs, has presented a readable history of a city some still call “the Athens of America” in his book Reform-ing Boston Schools, 1930-2006: Over-

coming Corruption and Racial Segregation.From the 19th century into the 1940s,

the Boston Latin School (for boys only) was considered the jewel of public schools in New England. It had a difficult entrance exam, but for many immigrants in Boston, it opened the door of opportunity for future success. Irish, Italians, Jews and blacks were accepted without prejudice.

The buildup of Catholic schools took place during the first half of the 20th cen-tury. Catholic parents often would send

their children to elementary parochial schools and then move them into pub-lic high schools. Cronin points out the notion of public schools as a monopoly for Boston Catholics was not accurate.

Population changes between World War II and the 1990s created a new social dynamic. Called by the author “black voices for education,” the black community’s demands for improvement led the NAACP — the National Asso-ciation for the Advancement of Colored People — to file a federal lawsuit against the school board in 1973. A ruling one year later found Boston “uncondition-ally segregated” and ordered busing for 14,000 children away from their neigh-borhood schools.

The business community, reluctant to be involved in the turbulent times, came on board in the mid-1980s with the development of the Boston Compact. More recently, the state legislature turned the school committee into an appointed body and allowed a mayoral-appointed superintendent.

These influences culminated in 2006 when the Boston schools won the Broad Prize as the nation’s most improved urban system.

reviewed by William J. Leary, professor of education, Lynn University, Boca Raton, Fla.

Having Hard Conversations by Jennifer abrams, Corwin Press, Thousand Oaks, Calif., 2009, 127 pp. with index, $$28.95 softcover

Delivering difficult news is a challeng-ing responsibility given scant atten-tion by administra-tor preparation pro-grams. Many school leaders feel awkward and anxious raising

sensitive or uncomfortable issues with a parent or a subordinate.

Having Hard Conversations is a valuable tool committed to keeping the focus on student achievement and the organization’s vision. Author Jennifer Abrams is a profes-sional development consultant for a major school district.

She guides the reader through a skills-

based process for conducting potentially contentious meetings. The book contains scenarios with which many of us can read-ily identify and presents scripts for con-veying the desired message.

Acknowledging that “educators are nice guys,” this book encourages use of heart in dealing with difficult people while focusing on expected professional behav-iors. Superintendents will connect with many of Abrams’ scenarios but will yearn for more cases specific to their daily work at the district level.

Having Hard Conversations helps us to clarify the behavior that goes beyond the annoying and that may damage or seriously affect others. The book directs readers through the steps of developing a pragmatic action plan to correct the undesirable behavior. reviewed by Edward J. Sullivan, chair, department of educational administration, SUNY New Paltz



A Game Plan for Effective Leadershipby robert Palestini, Rowman and Littlefield Educa-tion, Lanham, Md., 2008, 231 pp. $75 hardcover, $29.95 softcover

A Game Plan for Effective Leadership uses the case study approach to facili-tate moving theory into practice. Each chapter studies how a successful bas-ketball coach uses-leadership theory. Among the subjects

are Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, Bobby Knight, Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Pat Sum-mitt, John Thompson and John Wooden.

Author Robert Palestini examines situational leadership and emphasizes four frames of reference, as developed by Lee Bolman and Terrence Deal. These are structural, human resource, political and symbolic. Each frame is analyzed and

examples are given to demonstrate how the coaches effectively used the four lead-ership styles.

Structural leaders focus on implemen-tation. They emphasize rationality, logic, fact and data. Human resource leaders believe in people and communicate that belief. They are passionate about produc-tivity through people. Political leaders mobilize the resources needed to advo-cate for their course-meeting goals and objectives. The symbolic leader attempts to communicate the right impressions to the right audiences.

At the end of the book, readers may self-administer the Heart Smart Organi-zational Diagnosis test, yielding diagno-ses in 10 areas that allow the reader to determine an organization’s strengths and weaknesses.

The most interesting parts of the book were the examples about the coaches’ implementation of situational leadership and the Heart Smart scoring sheet.

reviewed by Paul a. Shaw, superintendent, White County, Ga.

Designing and Teaching Learning Goals and objectives: Classroom Strategies That Workby robert J. Marzano, Marzano Research Laboratory, Bloomington, Ind., 2009, 135 pp. with index, $24.95 softcover

The first book in Robert Marzano’s Classroom Strat-egies That Work library, Design-ing and Teaching Learning Goals and Objectives: Classroom State-gies That Work,

will immediately engage the district’s cur-riculum and instruction department, the campus leadership team and the class-room teacher. The book can be used as a self-study text or as a departmental or faculty book study.

Based on research and theory, it con-tains instructional strategies that can be used immediately in the classroom to improve student learning. Marzano is CEO of a research laboratory in Denver, Colo., and author of more than 30 books on instruction, assessment, implementing standards, effective leadership and school intervention.

The chapters on designing learning goals and objectives include tables and exercises for educators to test their own comprehension of the new content. Because of our changing school popu-lations, the information on how to dif-ferentiate the learning goals based on the four levels of the new taxonomy is extremely pertinent.

Differentiation and student empower-ment are taken a step further through use of the goal-setting scale. In classrooms where the learning goal scale is used, students become more responsible for demonstrating their own competence. The focus on learning goals encourages students to learn cooperatively.

Reproducible forms are provided for the exercises and the answers to the exer-cises. These may be copied from the book or downloaded from Marzano’s website.

reviewed by Lylia king, executive director of curric-ulum and instruction, Cleburne Independent School District, Cleburne, Texas

Instructional Rounds in Education: A Network Approach to Improving Teaching and Learningby Elizabeth a. City, richard F. Elmore, Sarah E. Fiarman and Lee Teitel, Harvard Education Press, Cambridge, Mass., 2009, 216 pp. with index, $49.95 hardcover, $24.95 softcover

Inspired by the medical rounds model used for years by physi-cians, the authors combine their experiences with professional net-works in four states to produce

Instructional Rounds in Education. As con-ceptualized by the authors, the rounds capitalize on the best elements of three approaches to improving student achieve-ment: walkthroughs, professional networks and district improvement strategies.

Conducting rounds is a four-step process:

l Identifying a concrete problem of practice — the specific aspect of instruc-

tional improvement that the school or district is wrestling with;

l Observing and recording descriptive feedback of several classroom lessons for about 20 minutes each by a well-trained group of observers;

l Building a body of evidence by describing and analyzing (but not evalu-ating or judging) what was seen in the classrooms and predicting what students are learning; and

l Making recommendations for the school’s next steps in addressing the instructional problem.

Most districts struggle with how to tackle the traditional norms of privacy and isolation in teaching, while providing coherent and useful guidance and support for new instructional practices. This book includes practical advice for how leaders can achieve the right mix of consistency and creativity using nonthreatening and collaborative processes.

The authors admit that rounds are no magic bullet to educating all students at high levels, but they seem to have tre-mendous potential that can’t be ignored.

reviewed by ronald S. Thomas, associate director, Center for Leadership in Education, Towson Univer-sity, Baltimore, Md.



Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroomby Daniel T. Willingham, John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, Calif., 2009, 180 pp., $24.95 hardcover

The title Why Don’t Students Like School? A Cognitive Scientist Answers Questions About How the Mind Works and What It Means for the Classroom fails to fully represent the breadth and depth

of the material covered in this 180-page book. Few other books that attempt to relate brain research to learning and teaching are as clear and straightforward.

Daniel Willingham, a psychology pro-fessor at University of Virginia, takes on some of the most critical issues that con-front teachers: How do I deal with the student who is falling further and further behind? How can I teach to all of the learning styles and the other differences among my students?

Willingham translates cognitive the-ory into practice that is ready for direct application in the classroom. Readers should not be put off by Willingham’s cognitive science background. He shares his technical knowledge with a comfort-able writing style, making pretty stuffy material very inviting.

The book argues for instructional methods that counter conventional wis-dom, but a reader schooled in the tradi-tional notions of cognitive development levels or different types of learners will find it difficult to challenge his position. His argument is based on solid theory, and he demonstrates throughout an under-standing of the realities of the classroom.

Why Don’t Students Like School? is aug-mented by down-to-earth illustrations, appropriate figures and descriptive charts. The author’s sense of humor resides in the background giving his writing a con-genial tone. reviewed by Jim Frenck, associate professor of teacher education, Roberts Wesleyan College, Rochester, N.Y.

Delivering on the Promise: The Education Revolutionby richard a. Delorenzo, Wendy J. Battino, rick M. Schreiber and Barbara Gaddy Carrio, Solution Tree, Bloomington, Ind., 2009, 202 pp. with index, $24.95 softcover

Accounts of lead-ing educational change are always interesting. Deliv-ering on the Promise caught my atten-tion because of its focus on a change process related to standards-based curriculum, instruc-

tion and assessment — a process taking place in districts nationwide.

This story of change began in 1994 in the Chugach, Alaska, school district, where two change agent school leaders started in new positions on the same day. The district’s journey started with an intensive look at district data to assess the health of the organization. The examina-tion forced school officials and the entire

community to look at the “brutal facts” of dismal student achievement and set a new course.

The course for change was dynamic, and this book illustrates what became the mantra of the district, “We’re build-ing the plane as we’re flying it.” Simul-taneous change processes are explained — standards revision, implementation of a new report card and a move from traditional age-based grade levels to a sys-tem in which students move at their own developmental pace.

The book also describes the formation of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition, a nonprofit organization that supports lighthouse districts that meet the needs of all students by way of an integrated, standards-based approach to education.

Reading about successful change in other districts is valuable to the extent the details are specific and the examples are clearly illustrative. Delivering on the Promise tells the story of how a district delivered high student achievement for all students.

reviewed by Marilyn king, assistant superintendent, Bozeman Public Schools, Bozeman, Mont.

Millennials and K-12 Schools: Educational Strategies for a New Generationby neil Howe and William Strauss, LifeCourse Asso-ciates, Great Falls, Va., 2008, 129 pp. with index, $24.50 softcover

“I just can’t under-stand children today.” “These new teachers don’t get it!”

If you have overheard state-ments like these uttered at your school by teach-

ers, then you will find Millennials and K-12 Schools useful and timely reading.

This text is divided into three broad sections. The first describes the genera-tion of students currently in our schools, the Millennials. This is followed by an indepth discussion of what Neil Howe and the late William Strauss call Millennials’ core traits and the connection of these traits to K-12 schools. The final section

focuses on the relationship between Mil-lennials and their teachers.

The authors make the case, through the use of relevant statistics, that the Millennials represent a sharp break from the previous generation of students. But because of the negative portrayal of stu-dents by our mass media, most Ameri-cans do not know Millennials as the happy, confident and positive students they actually are.

Millennials possess seven basic traits labeled special, sheltered, confident, team oriented, conventional, pressured and achieving. These traits are thor-oughly discussed in the second section, along with strategies to maximize student achievement.

The closing section discusses the char-acteristics of parent and teacher genera-tions, the Silent Generation, Boomers and Generation X and speculates about the impact of the next generation, Homeland students.

reviewed by ronald a. Styron Jr., director, Gulf Coast Instructional Leadership Center, University of Southern Mississippi, Long Beach, Miss.


P E o P L E T R A N S I T I o N S

thomas L. rogersAfter 16 years with the New York State Council of School Superintend-ents in Albany, N.Y., including six as execu-tive director, Tom Rog-ers has been named dis-

trict superintendent of the Nassau BOCES in Garden City, N.Y. With 4,300 staff and 56 school districts, this is the larg-est BOCES in New York. Rogers earlier was a program associate in the New York State Senate Majority Program Office. He recently co-founded Public Schools for Tomorrow, an organization of public school leaders. An AASA member since 1996, Rogers earned a doctorate from Teachers College at Columbia University.

Jeffrey M. Young Following an 11-year run as superintendent in Newton, Mass., Jeffrey Young has moved into the superintendency of Cambridge, Mass. He previously served

superintendencies in Lexington, Mass., and Lynnfield, Mass., worked as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruc-tion in Lynnfield and co-chaired the Eng-lish department in Brookline, Mass. An AASA member since 1989, Young holds an Ed.D. in administration, planning and social policy from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education.

Sharon L. ZoellnerThe new superintend-ent in Louisburg, Kan., Unified School District is Sharon Zoellner. She spent the previous 10 years in the De Soto, Kan., Unified Schools,

the past six as the superintendent. Earlier in De Soto, she held posts as deputy super-intendent, assistant superintendent, direc-tor of finance and student services, and elementary school principal. An AASA member since 1993, Zoellner is president-elect of the Kansas Association of School Administrators in 2009-10. She served as president of the United School Adminis-trators of Kansas in 2001. Zoellner earned her Ph.D. in educational administration from the University of Kansas.

Hank S. Bangser An AASA member since 1978, Hank Bang-ser recently became the new superintendent of the 3,000-student Ojai, Calif., Unified School District. Bangser previ-

ously served as the chief executive officer for Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, an executive search firm, for two years. He has held posts as superintendent for 23 years in Pelham, N.Y., St. Charles, Ill., and Northfield/Winnetka, Ill., and served as a principal in Lake Forest, Ill. Bangser began his career as an English teacher in Skokie, Ill.. He earned a Ph.D. in educa-tional administration from Northwestern University.

tom W. Kimbrell Following four years as executive director of the Arkansas Association of Educational Administra-tors, Tom Kimbrell has assumed the position of Arkansas commissioner

of education. Kimbrell earlier worked as superintendent of the districts in North Little Rock and Paragould, Ark. He also was director of fiscal services in Para-gould, assistant principal in Corning, and a teacher in Paragould and Pocahontas, all in Arkansas. Kimbrell, a 10-year AASA member, holds a doctorate in education from Arkansas State University.

John F. McEwan The new president of Cardinal Spellman High School in Brockton, Mass., is John McEwan, who started his career there 37 years ago as a teacher/department

head. An AASA member for the past eight years, McEwan served for eight years as superintendent in Whitman, Mass. He earlier held site administrator posts in the Dover-Sherborn and Silver Lake school districts, both in Massa-chusetts. McEwan won the President’s Award from the Massachusetts Asso-ciation of School Superintendents in 2009. He holds an Ed.D. in educational leadership from the University of Mas-sachusetts.

aPPointMEntSDeborah Cuevas, from principal to superin-tendent, Briggs School District, Santa Paula, Calif. James Haley, from superintendent, Oak Grove, Mo., to superintendent, Warsaw, Mo. Bruce Hibbard, from assistant superintendent, Metropolitan School District of Washington Township, Indianapolis, Ind., to superintendent, New Albany-Floyd County, Ind., Consolidated School Corporation. Mike Paskewicz, from superintendent, Adams 12 Five Star Schools, in Thorton, Colo., to super-intendent, Northview Public Schools, Grand Rapids, Mich.Sarah Pinion, from superintendent, Jesup, Iowa, to superintendent, Marion, IowaMike Scott, from interim superintendent to superintendent, Hillsboro, Ore. Michael Severson, from superintendent, Central Cass School District, Casselton, N.D., to superin-tendent, New Salem, N.D.Chris Small, superintendent, Grain Valley, Mo., to superintendent, New Bloomfield, Mo.

rEtirEMEntSEric L. Eversley, superintendent, Freeport, N.Y.ronald L. Friedman, superintendent, Great Neck, N.Y. richard J. keville, superintendent, Camden, N.Y.Jim Lewis, superintendent, Blaine County School District 61, Hailey, IdahoLorenzo Licopoli, superintendent, Mineola, N.Y.richard S. Marsh, superintendent, Bethpage, N.Y.Edward Price, superintendent, Island Park, N.Y. Leon J. reed, superintendent, Schuylerville, N.Y.robert J. reidy, superintendent, Mahopac, N.Y.richard r. rhau, superintendent, Saugerties, N.Y.John E. Slattery, superintendent, Thousand Islands School District, Clayton, N.Y.Gary P. Smith, superintendent, Greene, N.Y.Lynn Steenblock, superintendent, Forest Lake, Minn.John L. Stoothoff, superintendent, Washington-Saratoga-Warren-Hamilton-Essex BOCES, Fort Edward, N.Y.Dominick vita, superintendent, Litchfield, Conn.

dEatHSBrian a. Beeler, 59, superintendent, Acton, Maine, April 25Frank Greenhall, 59, retired superintendent, Warwick, N.Y., Aug. 21John Harrison, 41, superintendent, Ottawa Town-ship, Ill., Oct. 11richard a. Steudle, 76, retired superintendent, Berlin, N.H., Sept. 11Deborah S. Stewart, 57, superintendent, Hope, Maine, March 25

news about aaSa members’ promotions, retire-ments, honors and deaths should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 801 n. Quincy St., Suite 700, arlington, Va 22203. Fax: 703-528-2146. E-mail: [email protected]


T R A N S I T I o N S

A ntoinette Cavanaugh’s faith in the power of education was forged early — and painfully. Growing up in a broken home on the Duck Valley Indian Res-

ervation in Owyhee, Nev., she found sta-bility only at school. In her teachers, she saw a future.

“I made a decision that the only way for me to have a better life was to go to school and get a college degree,” she says.

For Cavanaugh, superintendent of the sprawling Elko County School District in northeastern Nevada, where she spent her childhood, that was an enormous leap. As a young girl on the reservation, she was raised by her mother and two successive stepfathers. Poverty and alcoholism took their tolls; her mother divorced twice, then left home when Cavanaugh was a sophomore in high school, leaving her to raise her three younger siblings.

One of her several after-school jobs was in the high school cafeteria, where she was given leftovers to take home to sustain her family.

A childhood filled with such experi-ences convinced her to find a way out. “There’s a feeling you get when you ask for assistance that you’re lesser than, and I didn’t like that feeling,” she says.

When she graduated from high school, her older brother returned home to take care of the children, allowing Cava-naugh to go to Boise State University, and become the first in her family to get a college degree. She has since earned her master’s degree, and at 49 is working on her Ph.D.

After college, she landed a job as an English and math teacher at her old reser-vation school, Owyhee Combined School. She rose through the school district’s ranks and in 2003 was named superintendent.

She could hardly have taken on a bigger challenge. Elko County is the fifth largest school district in the continental United States, covering more than 17,000 square miles and two time zones. It takes the good part of a day to travel the breadth of the district, which serves 9,700 students.

The district is home to a half-dozen distinct cultures, from the K-12 reserva-

tion school to one-room schoolhouses in the conservative ranching communities of Independence and Ruby Valley, to the Hispanic communities of Jackpot and West Wendover, the gold mining town of Carlin, and the gaming and mining city of Elko.

She lined up Save the Children and the Boys and Girls Club to help with after-school programs in Owyhee and Elko. For high-performing students in far-flung schools, she established a videoconferenc-ing system for honors and AP courses.

The Elko school board president, Patty Jones, says Cavanaugh is willing to tackle any challenge and see it through. Three years ago, she decided to establish an Elko County READS program, where everyone reads the same book. Within nine months, she had raised enough support and funding to make it a reality.

Bob Gallagher, a retired deputy superin-tendent, calls Cavanaugh the most impres-sive educator he’s met in his 32-year career.

“Doing what you say you’re going to do is becoming a rare quality, and she does it every day,” he says. “She makes the best decisions she can, and she stands by them.”

Like everyone else, Cavanaugh now is dealing with budget cuts. When she took over the district, it had a $125 mil-lion budget and a fund balance of only $100,000. She gradually built up the latter to $5 million and used about $1.3 mil-lion of it to balance this year’s spending plan. She credits that foresight to lessons learned in childhood.

“Having the responsibility of taking care of my brothers and sister, you have to think forward, you can’t just think of right now,” she says. “Knowing that you have to be thoughtful about where your next year’s funding will be is essential.”

Paul riede is editorial page editor with The Post-Standard in Syracuse, n.Y. E-mail: [email protected]

An Enormous Leap From the ReservationB y P A u L R I e D e

P R o F I L E : A N T o I N E T T E C A V A N A U G H

B i o S tat S : a n t o i n E t t E c aVa n a U g H CurrEnTLy: superintendent, Elko County, Nev.

PrEvIOuSLy: director of special services and federal programs, Elko County, Nev.

aGE: 49

GrEaTEST InFLuEnCE On PrOFESSIOnaL CarEEr: Two teachers, Linda Stogsdill Morse (business education) and Gwen Ann Thacker (English and journalism), made an impact

during my high school, formative years. Through them I came to understand my self-worth and my capacity for growth.

BEST PrOFESSIOnaL Day: May 14, 2009. I spent it in three schools where I was able to teach at two of the one-room schools and visit the rural K-12 combined school in Owyhee, Nev. The distance between schools spanned nearly 80 miles, with a dirt road connecting the three in two different time zones.

BOOkS aT BEDSIDE: Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell; From Standards to Success: A Guide for School Leaders by Mark R. O’Shea; and Rethinking Educational Change With Heart and Mind edited by Andy Hargreaves

BIGGEST BLOOPEr: My secretary says I don’t have any, so it must be true because she has survived five superintendents! That being said, my biggest blooper was calling a long-time, local administrator with whom I had worked for a number of years in different capacities by the wrong name … and it happened on local TV.

kEy rEaSOn I’M an aaSa MEMBEr: AASA promotes and provides networking opportu-nities, ongoing professional development, up-to-date announcements about changes in law that impact the business of education from an administrative perspective, and professional updates regarding educational issues that arise across the nation.


L E A D E R S H I P L I T E

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A Surefire Formula for Foul WeatherHomage to the Snow King Kim Cranston, the chief communications officer for the Rockwood School Dis-trict in Wildwood, Mo., received word from a mother about how her child in elementary school does his part to “help” the school district deal with the threat of inclement weather in the winter.

“My son came home from school on a Monday when the weather forecast was calling for a chance of snow and said, ‘Mom, I have to wear my pajamas inside out and backwards to bed tonight. And I have to flush an ice cube down the toilet” … all to send as much energy to the snow gods as possible and bring about a snow day. All of this worked and school was cancelled on Tuesday.

“Then on Tuesday night when I was putting him to bed at his normal time, he said ‘Mom, I didn’t flush an ice cube down the toilet!’ I assured him I would do it for him — and I did. Voila! No school on Wednesday.

“These kids’ magic potions seem to really work!” the mom reported.

does anyone read?Each year when parents register their chil-dren in the 50,000-student Cherry Creek School District in suburban Denver, they receive a packet containing information about school policies and procedures. One item explains weather-related delays to the start of the school day for each school level and where to find out if there is a delay. This guidance also appears in dis-trict publications for parents, such as the school calendar, annual reports, school newsletters and the district website.

Several years ago, the district changed its delayed-start times and notified par-ents at the beginning of the year via the information packets and school newslet-ters. In November, the schools had their first delayed start of the season.

“We notified TV and radio stations, posted the information on our website and activated our weather hotline,” says

Tustin Amole, public information officer in Cherry Creek. “As usual, we had some families who didn’t check any of those sources and sent their kids to bus stops at their regular time where they waited until the bus’ late arrival. And as usual, we listened patiently to the angry phone calls and sent out reminders about the procedure to school newsletters [as well as] letters home, along with careful expla-nations about how we decide whether to delay school and the reasons for doing it.”

But one complaint via e-mail stood out from all the rest. The mother explained all the problems the delayed start had caused her family, but what angered her the most is that she didn’t know about the change to the delayed start times from the previ-ous year. Yes, she acknowledged receiving the registration packet, the calendar, and the school newsletters, all announcing the change, but she hadn’t read any of them because she assumed she already knew the procedure.

In the future, she asked, would the school district please write “Important, Please Read” at the top of any document sent home announcing a change in poli-cies or procedures.

“She said that would help her decide which of the things we sent home we actu-ally wanted her to read,” Amole says.

different ShoeBrian Bettger, the assistant princi-

pal at Almeria Middle School in Fontana, Calif., received a report that a student at the school was concealing a knife. Upon searching the youngster during 3rd period, Bettger discovered a 7½-inch knife concealed in his shoe.

The youth’s surprised reply: “I didn’t know it was in there.”

When the mother was con-tacted a short while later, she

replied: “He didn’t know it was in there.”

Fingering the ProblemDan Woll, superintendent in Menomonie, Wis., tells this tale about the French Revo-lution and the superintendent:

“They brought forth a superintendent, a school board member and a teacher to be guillotined. The teacher went first. He put his head down, the blade plummeted, but at the last minute it stuck an inch above his neck.

“The executioner said, ‘Your lucky day. There is no double jeopardy. You are free.’

“They brought up the school board member, sharpened the blade and redid it. Same thing: The blade dropped, but stuck right above the board member’s neck. He was set free.

“The superintendent walked up. They sharpened the blade, greased the rail and re-examined everything. Just as the execu-tioner was about to pull the switch, the superintendent looked up and said, ‘Wait! I see what’s wrong.’ ”

(Source: The Dunn County News, Menomonie, Wis.)

Short humorous anecdotes, quips, quotations and malapropisms for this column relating to school district administration should be addressed to: Editor, The School Administrator, 801 n. Quincy St., Suite 700, arlington, Va 22203. Fax: 703-528-2146. E-mail: [email protected]. Upon request, names may be withheld in print.


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Generations at School

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