The Real Reason Schooling Is So Important Often Gets Lost Amid Talk of Test Scores And

Assignment #3

2/28/18

Reflection #3

This week’s readings and discussions centered around the big theme of brutal honesty: of looking at real data and asking stakeholders’ opinions, even when the results will feel like a punch in the face. Pow! Of They speak to being an ethical leader who is not afraid to challenge the status quo, even when it’s inconvenient. Of and honestly and openly inviting all stakeholders to create a school together and really creating a shared vision. We desperately need this!!!!To use the frog analogy discussed in class, the school system and its educators—just like the lonely frog sitting in the slowly boiling water—have declined slowly and comfortably, not realizing that death is imminent. Aha New teachers (and I assume new administrators) come into the system full of energy and hope that they will make a difference. Only to years later they become disillusioned political players, who only care about keeping their jobs. So how do we change this? How do we not become merely a manager instead of a leader? The answer is by being brutally honest, even when it hurts. And it will.maybe

The real reason schooling is so important often gets lost amid talk of test scores and reading levels. As Starratt writes in Educational Leadership: A Bridge to Improved Practice, school leaders must preserve the “moral integrity of learning as the pursuit of the truth about oneself and one’s world…, [learning] can help or hinder learners to identify who they are” (Cunningham & Cordeiro, 2012, p. 13). This is a huge responsibility, which should not be taken lightly. In my current reality, we often think about a child’s academic and social-emotional needs, but we rarely equate learning to a tool for children to discover who they are (ELCC. 5.1, 5.2, 5.5). The goal of schooling can also be understood as “academic achievement, effective work habits, civic values, social behavior, self-esteem, and self-reliance” (Owens & Valesky, 2015, p. 790). In class we stressed the importance of social-emotional literacy and virtues, rather than values. Our current school system’s emphasis is more on academics and the implementation of magical new programs, rather than educating the whole child. We must be aware of our students’ social-emotional needs, and use what we know to raise children who will have achieved mastery, and also become confident, virtuous human beings in the process (ELCC 6.2, 6.1, 2.1, 1.3).

Being able to advocate for the child is only one of many skills a great school leader must possess. Razik & Swanson (2001) discuss the importance of developing strong interpersonal skills to build strong relationships, as well as viewing people through the lens of Theory Y rather than X, as being able to exercise self-control and having the motivation to complete an objective if they are committed to it through having a sense of ownership. In Fundamental Concepts of Educational Leadership(Razik, & Swanson, 2001),they also mention how a transformational leader is preferable to a transactional one. Transformational leaders create a feeling of ownership through fostering the establishment of a shared vision. They create a cultural change bygetting everyone involved in the process. This ties in with what we discussed in class, and read in Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work, about the importance of the process, rather than the product.good connection! People will work together during the process as a professional learning community, and ultimately participating in this shared experience becomes more important than the final product. In my school, leadership is more transactional than transformational. Performance is rewarded on an individual basis and self-interest is encouraged. There is an “every man for himself” mentality; a culture of isolation. As Sarason (as cited by DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 172) noted, we are “psychologically alone even though [we] are in a densely populated building”(ELCC 6.3, 2.1, 1.3).

Just like every other aspect of our lives, the notion of what constitutes good leadership has undergone some changes. There has been a myriad of studies and research, but what stands out is that there are almost always two—usually opposing—ways of thinking about leadership: Democratic and authoritarian, consideration and structure oriented, task and relationship oriented, authoritative and participative (Razik,& Swanson, 2001). As we will learn the answer is never either /or; it is always and/both – the language of consensusAll of these different styles of leadership have some merit and, as is often the case in life, there is no one word answer to the question of “What is good leadership?”When thinking about the answer, we must first identify our goal.!! What is it that good leadership will result in? What do we want to achieve? The answer is empowerment. We want people to feel empowered.As Bill Gates put it,“Empowering leadership means bringing out the energy and capabilities that people have and getting them to work together in a way they wouldn’t do otherwise” (Razik & Swanson, 2001, p. 95). Leaders can empower people by creating a system of high consideration and high structure, by being both task and relationship oriented and by creating a Democratic setting (Razik, & Swanson, 2001). In my current reality, there is little empowerment. Both teachers and administration get lost in the day to day of the job. We mostly work separately; everyone is concentrating on what they have to accomplish by the end of the day. There is some structure and some friendliness, even some trust. There are times when it feels like this is a democracy, sometimes it is more like an autocracy, and there are even times when it leans towards laissez faire. We do a little bit of everything, but we lack consistency!! (ELCC 1.1, 1.3, 2.1, 4.1).

Effective leaders can only initiate change in the culture of a school, once they identify what needs to be changed. In order to find these areas and the mental models that produced them, principals must be able to use inquiry effectively. In class, and in the book, Designing School Systems For All, we discussed the importance of asking questions to find the mental models of an organization using Senge’s Iceberg: we must look at the event (What happened?), identify patterns/trends (What has been happening?), identify systemic structures (What structures or absence of structure that caused this event?) and finally, find the mental models that produced this structure (What was the thinking behind the structure?). This line of inquiry seems to be absent in my reality.:-( We often get stuck at the event, and only rarely do we identify the patterns. Even if we do, we do not dig deeper, we just come up with a quick fix, a program. “Confronting current reality is the first step toward substantively changing a system culture and its output” (Manley & Hawkins, 2010, p. 735). Our inability to confront reality leads me to think that there is a lack of desire to change our mental models in my building. After all, if we knew what was wrong, we would have to do something about it. We would have to change the way we think. And that is work. Maybe we possess more Theory X attributes than Y????!!!!! (Razik & Swanson, 2001)(ELCC 2.1, 1.3, 1.2).

Another tool school leaders haveat their disposal to help them initiate change is data. To know what kind of data we need, we must first inquire, we must “state a problem or question [and then decide which] data sources to use or create” (Kowalkski, Lasley, & Mahoney, 2008, p.936).Since there is a lot of different data, leaders must carefully decide which one will be the most appropriate for their purposes. Leaders can rely on formative and summative assessments. Doug Reeves (as cited by Manley & Hawkins, 2010, p. 726) noted that a formative test is like a physical exam, while a summative test is more like an autopsy. School leaders must also make sure that they analyze data from a variety of sources: student and parent surveys and interviews and behavior reports prove to be extremely helpful in getting to the root of the problem of why students are not learning (Manley & Hawkins, 2010). Principals must also rely on direct and indirect observations of teachers to ascertain areas of improvement and their findings must be based on evidence of teaching and learning (Kowalkski, T.J., Lasley, T.J., & Mahoney, J. W, 2008).In class we discussed how schools in William Floyd measured the behavior of students and implemented the reflection system to improve it. In my school, we have JupiterGrades, an online grading system to log student behavior. We use the data we collect this way to inform parents of student behavior and administration uses it to back up suspension requests if needed.  We never actually analyze this data through the lens of Senge’s Iceberg: What pattern do we see? What structures do we have/lack that produces this behavior?!!!! And most importantly: What is our mental model that produced this structure?!!!!!!!!!!(ELCC 1.2, 3.1, 3.2)

All too often, “looking at data” is something schools only do at random, instead of being embedded in their culture. “Data based decision making […] needs to be routinely adopted as a pedagogical way of life in the school’s culture” (Kowalkski, Lasley, & Mahoney, 2008, p.908). Teachers frequently only rely on “cardiac assessment” (p. 909) to determine what students need. They often lack the appropriate training to know what to look for. Besides teachers, parents, and school leaders, students should also be looking at their own data. This will help them track their own progress and it creates ownership of learning (Kowalkski, Lasley, & Mahoney, 2008). My school has a data manager, who—besides doing everything else imaginable—creates charts for us full of numbers. ELA scores, Math scores, DRP and NYSESLAT scores. However, these scores do not tell us as much as we would like, since we do not have an organized, systematic way of looking at data (ELCC 1.2, 1.3, 2.1).

No matter what we find out about the culture of a school through data and inquiry, our goal as a leader will be the same: to foster the growth of our school as a professional learning community. A PLC must have a clear mission and a shared vision (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008). I think a school’s mission must include the biggest idea behind PLC and the focal point of school: educating ALL students. Whether it’s kids with IEPs or ELLs, or minorities, quite often, there is always a “but” after this statement. We often hear,“All kids can learn, but we should keep the special ed kids separate.” Or,“This child can write a five paragraph essay in English,he should be in a gen ed class, but oh, he’s an ELL, let’s just keep him in the transitional program.” For three years!Noooooooooooooooo So yes, there is definitely an observable “but” after “All children can learn.”(ELCC 2.1, 6.1, 5.1, 5.2) No “buts” in a PLC!

A school’s shared vision, collective commitments and common goals are just as important as its mission. Without knowing where we want to be, without having a clear plan for the future, “until educators can describe the ideal school they are trying to create, it is impossible to develop policies, procedures, or programs that will help make the ideal a reality” (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 120). Creating a shared vision together must also be accompanied by making collective commitments. Often people know what to do, but they do not do it! How comes after what! . Making these commitments to each other, and even making them public, staff members “take an important step in closing the knowing-doing gap” (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008, p. 151). These commitments result in internal focus, accountability and ultimately, a cultural shift: teachers will work interdependently and will not feel alone. To monitor our progress toward our shared vision, we must create common goals. Revisiting Professional Learning Communities at Work differentiates between SMART goals and nonmeasurable goals, such as becoming ethical citizens. In my current reality, there is not much mention of mission, vision, or goals (ELCC 1.1, 1.3, 2.1).

In a PLC, all stakeholders must have ownership. Parents/guardians are one of the most influential, and sometimes overlooked, members of a school community. They have a considerable amount of influence on the child. They might not always know what schools want them to do, which is why we need to educate them, we need to involve them (DuFour, DuFour, & Eaker, 2008). Dr. Hawkins described in class how he involved the entire community in creating the vision of the school by reaching out not only to the parents, but also to the greater external community. My school also reaches out to the greater community. We have relationships with certain venue owners, restaurant owners in the neighborhood. When there is food left from the after school program, members of the PTA and our parent coordinator take it to a local homeless shelter (ELCC 4.3, 4.2).

Summary

This week’s takeaways for me have a lot to do with honesty. As future leaders—and just as human beings—we must honestly and consistently reflect on our schools and ourselves. By using data and inquiry, we need to identify the mental models that result in unwanted events and get all stakeholders involved in the change process. We also learned that together we are better than alone and that isolation can have some pretty dire consequences on children’s psyches. We learned about what it means to be an ethical and effective leader. Mostly, we learned that we should try everything in our power not to let our schools become the frog in the boiling water. 

Rubric for Evaluation of Reflections

(5 pts. per reflection)

Content / 1 / .50 / .0
Leadership lens / Demonstrates thoughtful insight as a future leader / Some insight shown as a future leader / Limited or no insight offered regarding topic
Class discussions / Includes and integrates meaningful insights garnered from class discussions / Includes and integrates some insights garnered from class discussions / Includes and integrates few insights garnered from class discussions
Readings / Includes and integrates all assigned readings / Includes and integrates some readings / Includes and integrates few readings
Summary / Includes a summary paragraph which synthesizes all of the major, identifiable themes within and among the readings and class discussions and your most significant learning(s). / Includes a summary paragraph which synthesizes some of the major, identifiable themes within and among the readings and class discussions and your most significant learning(s). / Limited identification of themes. Limited ability to synthesize key learning.
Reveals limited evidence of significant learning(s).
XXXXXXXXX / .50 / .25 / .00
Standards / Cited and made accurate connections to the ISLLC/ELCC standards and elements / Cited and made some connections to the ISLLC/ELCC standards and elements / Cited and made limited or no connections to the ISLLC/ELCC standards and elements
Grammar/APA format / No punctuation or grammatical errors. Follows APA format. Includes complete bibliography / Some punctuation and/or grammatical errors.
Follows some APA format.
Includes incomplete bibliography. / Punctuation and grammatical errors interfered with the reader’s understanding of the paper.
Limited understanding of APA.
Incomplete or Minimal bibliography.
Total / Grade Ranges: 5 - 4.5 = A; 4.25 – 3.75 = A-; 3.5 – 3= B+; 2.75 = B
Self –Assessment: / Students should highlight each box in yellow that reflects their personal assessment of their work.
Self-assessment Score: __5______6 Solid connections between c/t/e throughout. Your stories effectively amplify the quality and depth of your learning! __

Bibliography

Cunningham, W. G., & Cordeiro, P. A. (2012).Educational leadership: a bridge to

improved practice. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

DuFour, R., DuFour, R., & Eaker, R. E. (2008).Revisiting professional learning

communities at work: new insights for improving schools. Bloomington, IN:

Solution Tree Press.

Kowalski, T. J., Lasley, T. J., & Mahoney, J. W. (2008).Data-driven decisions and

school leadership: best practices for school improvement. Boston: Pearson/A and B.

Manley, R. J., & Hawkins, R. (2010).Designing school systems for all students: a tool

box to fix Americas schools. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Education.

Owens, R. G., & Valesky, T. C. (2015).Organizational behavior in education: leadership

and school reform. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Razik, T. A., & Swanson, A. D. (2001).Fundamental concepts of educational

leadership. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.