Home Room Testing

To begin, it doesn’t have to happen in home room, but it could.

Every student, at some point in their school day will sit down at a computer, individually or in home room and answer say, ten questions.

The questions would be created on a daily basis by (someone?) in order to gather information on a specific area of a students education; math, reading, writing, … life skills.

The same questions could be asked of students school wide, district wide, state wide, or nationally.  Or any combination in between.

If the aggregate answers point to a problem; follow up questions can be asked immediately to find the root of the problem.

For example; let’s say the question is asked;

When did a man first walk on the moon?

And the results show that only .0034% of high schools seniors are aware that a man has walked on the moon.

As soon as the next school day, follow up questions can be asked to explore the entire dynamic.

• What is a rocket?
• Where does the moon go when it sets?
• Is the moon made of cheese?

We are obliged to ask the last question only because we spend so long convincing children that it actually is.

It would cost next to nothing.

A Czar, a bunch of czarlings, a few multistory buildings,

not much else.

on Looking for Leadership

There are at least two different kinds of administrations. There are those in which everyone looks up for direction; and there are those in which everyone looks down for direction.

The direction in which one should look for leadership has to do with the answer to a series of questions; where is the expertise; where is the education/training, and where is the experience?

If the person at the top of the administration is really more expert, more educated, and more experienced than anyone in the administration; then it makes sense to look up for direction.

If those at the bottom of the organization have the expertise, education and the experience; then it makes sense for the administration to look down for direction.

Consider those at the “bottom” in the APS; the people who work at the educational interface; the classrooms.

Among them in the APS; there is close to 100,000 years of teaching experience. They all have college degrees; many have masters degrees; some hold doctorates.

If we can agree that the educational interface is the place where the most expertise lies; then it makes sense to make decisions from there, to spend resources from there, and to “lead” from there.

There are two schools of thought on selecting the next superintendent. One will look for a person who can solve all of the problems.

An immediate drawback from that position is that; if something happens to that person; the system grinds to a halt until another “expert” takes the helm.

Ideally in an administration; if the top administrator were unfortunate enough to be abducted by aliens; the system should continue as if nothing happened.

This characteristic is an immediate advantage in systems that look down for direction. Unless all of the stakeholders are abducted together, the inertia of the system would carry it through the selection of another “leader”.

The down looking administration recognizes that; there is no one person more expert than all of us, no one smarter than all of us, no one with more experience than all of us, and no one with more education and training than all of us.

Such an administration needs a superintendent whose skills lie in allowing solutions to bubble to the surface, creating consensus around solutions, and then coordinating the assaults on the problems.

Since education takes place in classrooms, then every part of the institution outside of the classroom, should exist to support what goes on in classrooms.

Decision making power and resources should be dedicated first to the educational interface. They should be taken away from the interface only as absolutely necessary.

The superintendent candidates who want to sit at the top of the hill giving direction to those who look up for leadership; are different people from those who would sit and the top and look down for direction.

This is a fundamental question on the direction the district will take.

It is a question that we must answer before we start looking for candidates. The best candidates for two fundamentally different types of superintendencies are themselves fundamentally different. There are no candidates qualified, and probably no candidates interested in “leading” either type of administration.

There is no candidate who is equally adept at giving direction and taking direction.

Our search for candidates should not gather both types; half of them will find themselves candidates for a job that they don’t want.

First we have to decide which type we want, based on which type of leadership we want. Do we want centralized management, or do we want site based management?

Are we going to continue with the top down leadership model; a model which is arguably not working? Or should we try something new in a site based management model?

We are at a fork in the road. If we are ready to try site based management as the solution to our problems; we need a superintendent who believes in site based management.

We need to settle the question of site based or centralized management soon.

Those whose positions will be stripped of power and resources can be expected to fight against site based management.

Their first tactic will be to disallow the discussion of site based management.

We Give Our Kids a Tee Shirt

Printed on the front and back;

Stand up for what you believe in …
… even if you are standing alone.

How much better, if instead of a tee shirt,
we offered something more.

By standing behind them offering support, and
By standing beside them in their sacrifice; and
By standing in front of them, leading by our example.

Here is a moment of truth.

That time when you know for certain that it is time to pick a side; and you’re wondering if you are willing to make the sacrifice.

Sacrifice is the currency of commitment.

If our commitment is to hold ourselves honestly accountable
to a meaningful standards of conduct

as role models for our 99,000 of our sons and daughters;

then our sacrifice, is to make it so.

Funding Education Adequately

The perfect number of dollars to dedicate to educating our children; would be the highest number we can imagine, which is not then wasted.

The paradigm as it now exists;
voter/taxpayers are given a choice of underfunding education,
or raising taxes.

Voter/taxpayers are not allowed to choose between art in the schools and art along the freeway.

If they were given that choice; kids would have the funding they needed; and the people who want art along the freeway;

would be the ones needing to justify raising taxes.

Funding Priority

I’m wondering how this community is going to pay for a school police force.

I’m wondering how we are going to pay for all of the after and out of schools programs all of our children need.

I’m wondering how we will pay for all of the interventions and preventions our at risk sons and daughters need.

And I have an answer. We will fund their needs first.

As a community we will make them our top priority.

By community resolution we will agree that the very first funding in every budget year; will be the needs of our children.

First, we will fund their needs. And only after that,
will we fund any other endeavor.

The Journal Editors Weigh In on the Search for a New Superintendent

In an editorial in this morning’s Journal, the editors expressed their opinion on the size of the net that should be cast in the search for a new superintendent.

The debate over the size of the net, a local or national search for the next APS superintendent, misses the point if the net is being cast in the wrong direction.

There is no empirical proof of any positive correlation between being a successful educator and being a successful administrator.

In fact, it could be argued that APS is poorly administrated exactly because the net cast to find administrators has always been cast into a pool of educators.

What if what the APS really needs, is a business manager who can turn the APS into an efficient and effective organization that supports the efforts of educators?

The net can be cast over every ocean of educators in the world; and still catch the wrong fish.

We need to be talking about whether or not APS will continue to be guided from administrative offices that are as far from classrooms as they could possibly be.

We need to be talking about moving public resources and decision making power as close to the the educational interface as possible and put at the immediate disposal of educators.

The discussion of net size is a red herring.

Continued focus on that issue instead of discussing site based management, serves only the interests of those who would maintain their positions of power and influence in the leadership of the APS. They will want to fill the office of the superintendent with someone

… who won’t rock their boat.

They will be successful if people don’t start paying attention.

the Tail Wagging the Dog

In a journal article this morning; it was reported that there is a split among board members regarding how far to cast their net in the search for a new superintendent for the APS. Some would search locally; some would engage in a more expensive and complicated nationwide search.

Yet, there is no consensus regarding the type of fish they are looking for. If they are looking for a rainbow trout; there is no point in casting your net into the ocean. If you a looking for sharks; you won’t find many in local lakes.

I can think of a least two kinds of superintendents upon which the board might settle; those who have all the answers and expect the districts 6,000 professional educators to do as they are told, and those who recognize the inherent value of the 70,000 years of combined teaching experience in the district, and who will enable the success of site based management.

It is an important question; a real fork in the road; site based management, or another superintendent that will continue to fill floor upon floor of administrators in the Uptown Administrative Complex; a place further from the educational interface (classrooms) than any other place or perspective in the district.

There is no administrator equally competent in both enabling the success of subordinates, and/or insisting that all important decisions regarding the spending of resources and decision making power reside at 6400 Uptown Blvd.

The fact that the board is talking about where to fish, and not about what to fish for, is proof that they have already made up their minds about what they are fishing for.

And all of the pretense about community involvement is just that, pretense.

“APS Teachers Deserve Voice In Superintendent Selection”

The Journal (sub req) gave a few column inches to
the Teachers Federation President, Ellen Bernstein this morning.

On the table; Who will select the new superintendent for the APS?

On the most fundamental level, the school board will select the new supt.

Clearly they will or will not be taking advice; and will or will not feel pressure to select a particular candidate over others.

Bernstein articulated her position extraordinarily well.

“…a collaborative leader who respects the teaching profession and can galvanize the many talented teachers in our district to move our educational system forward.”

In short, we need a superintendent, who if a vote of confidence were taken after one year, would enjoy the support of teachers, and others who struggle at the educational interface; in the classrooms in the APS.

The likelihood that that will be the result of this selection process is probably remote.

The struggle is between those who have no say in the whole process of education; and those who want to have all of the say. It is a struggle between those who would spend public power and resources in the classroom and on school campuses; and those who would first build fancy seats of power and opulence from which they can then issue their salving global edicts.

School Board President, and the board’s travel agent
for power trips, Paula Maes, will hire a superintendent who will help cover up the district’s relationship with the Modrall law firm.
Robert Lucero will hire a superintendent who will make him feel important and powerful.
Delores Griego is yet to do anything to distance herself from the perception as yet another politica sitting on a school board.

Berna Facio and Gordon Rowe will have trouble taking a stand on anything and will likely go with flow.

Marty Esquivel and Mary Lee Martin are the two board members most likely to listen to all stakeholders and try to make a decision in their best interests.

Considering what happened to Marty Esquivel when he proposed an administrative audit;

it was gutted by Paula Maes, Modrall, et al, who will now conduct an administrative audit that specifically does not audit the conduct and competence of administrators;

and in light of the fact that this board just voted unanimously to adopt as their standard of conduct, a comparatively meaningless and completely unenforceable code of ethics;

…the outcome seems pretty much preordained.

And any effort to change that outcome,
pretty much a waste of time.

It will likely be a while before I write again on this blog

The purpose of this blog was to be a positive and proactive venue for improving education in the APS.

That is not possible with leadership that refuses accountability; even as role models for students; and while there is no hope that that situation will ever change.

…it is simply impossible.

The fight for the right of stakeholders to participate meaningfully  in the decisions that affect them will continue on Diogenes’six.

The Journal wrote about APS

this morning.

They did not write that the APS board of education has adopted a comparitively meaningless and absolutely unenforceable standard of conduct as the standard that they will model before students and staff.