The 21st Century Principal

"You got to use the power that you got." Malcolm Gladwell, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Most of us face situations where success seems impossible or improbable. Many of these situations involve what Malcolm Gladwell calls "Goliaths." These are adversaries or adverse conditions that appear to be insurmountable. In education, we often find ourselves in these "Goliath" situations where our initial assessment is that we can't possibly succeed, because we are out-manned, out-resourced, and out-powered, but according to Gladwell all is not lost. At the heart of our problem is our misconceptions about the situation and about who really has the power.

So what can we do? According to Gladwell, we can do the following:

• Rethink the idea of what an "advantage" is. Conventional wisdom sometimes tells us what is an advantage. For example, being a small school might seem to place that school at a disadvantage. It might not be able to offer all the extra-curricular activities, classes, and programs that a much larger school would be able to offer. Yet, the "advantage" the smaller school might have has to do with its ability to be more flexible, and hence change and improvements might be implemented much easier and more quickly than in a larger school. Nimbleness is certainly the case with smaller schools with smaller staffs. Often they can react more quickly and gracefully to changing conditions. We can as Gladwell tells us, turn our disadvantages into advantages.
• Change the rules. Often, in the midst of situations where we face adverse conditions, and we feel that loss is eminent, we feel hopeless. We feel hopeless because, in that situation, if we play by the rules, we are certain to lose. But, who said we had to play by these rules? Why can't we change them, modify them, and approach the adversity in an entirely new manner? Like the David and Goliath story, David chose not to engage the giant in a conventional manner, because he would have surely lost. Instead, he fought unconventionally and in a way his adversary wasn't expecting and won. Changing the rules is climbing out of the box systems put us in and reinventing the game. When you're faced with a sure loss, what do you have to lose?
• Use what you have. All of us in adversarial situations facing sure defeat, begin to engage in "What-if" thinking, such as, "What if we had more computers?" Or, "What if we had more money for teacher salaries?" The rest of those questions are outcomes we would like to see. Sometimes, though, in the face of adverse and adversarial conditions and sure loss, we have to turn to what we have, and often what we have and what we control is more than we think. For example, if you want a 1:1 computer program and can't find funding to purchase computers for every student, then "use what you have." Perhaps enough students have their own computers and you can open your network for BYOD and just purchase computers for those who can't afford them. This accomplishes the goal by "using what you got."

Is it time for school choice? Before those against vouchers and charters start throwing rotten tomatoes, let me explain. As most who've read this blog know, I am and have always been a staunch public school advocate. I do not believe that anything miraculous will happen if suddenly vouchers were available for every student, nor do I think that an increase of a thousandfold of the number of charter schools is suddenly going put us at the forefront in international PISA scores. Often those who push these choices do so for ideological reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with what's in the best interest of kids. So I am certainly not siding with free market fundamentalists who believe that market forces will suddenly catapult student achievement to first in the world. I simply don't see that happening. I also certainly do not side with those who think public education should be abolished and that the government has no business in it. Public education in this country has done wonders in providing opportunities and futures for kids. Still, what makes me ask the question, "Is it time for school choice?" has more to do with a public education system more interested in preserving itself than being introspective and asking why parents and their students want options in the first place.

Immediately, when public education begins to argue against charters or school choice, they begin crying about the loss of funding. From my perspective, this is entirely the wrong argument to make. It betrays a perspective that sees each student as an additional dollar sign to be added to a total, instead of a individual student to be taught and provided with educational opportunity. When districts begin using dollar amounts lost to defend against school vouchers or charter schools, they are demonstrating the wrong attitude. Instead, they should be asking why parents and students want to attend charter schools or want vouchers in the first place. Instead, they fight battles with the wrong ammunition, when they would be much better off being introspective and asking the tough questions about why their students are leaving or leave in the first place.

I suspect most parents just want the best schools they can get for their kids. They really don't care whether they are a charter school, private school or traditional public school; they want school to be a positive asset in their child's life. Public school districts, school leaders, and educators can work to provide those schools for parents, or they will continue to pressure politicians to give them options. I haven't the data, nor do I know even if it exists (maybe a reader out there can provide it), but I can't but wonder if there's a correlation between the proliferation of charter schools and school vouchers in places where public schools focus more intently on self-preservation rather than focusing on making themselves better. I realize many schools fight budget constraints, and poorly funded schools who are struggling can't compete. Still, when public schools lose their focus and spend more time on self-preservation than taking an honest look at themselves, schools couldn't possibly be focused on the primary mission of educating young minds.

What I have learned these past few years as a principal of a public school of choice, not charter, is this: many parents are seeking options, especially at the high school level. They want alternatives to the large, often impersonal, traditional high schools that most districts still operate. They are least interested in arguments about why charter schools are a bad idea because big schools will lose funding. They don't care about how efficient these large schools operate, and you can honestly throw all the test data you want to try to convince them of the effectiveness of that school. In the end, they want their child to be in a school that cares about them, that knows their child as individuals and not as test scores or a number. Finally, they want their child in a school where that child wants to be.

So, is it time for school choice? I think that question has been answered, at least here in North Carolina. Public schools districts had better stop fighting the battle of self-preservation, and start looking to see how they can re-form their schools into places that meet the needs of kids.

I think I have been fairly clear. I am no fan of Race to the Top. I have never been due to its over-reliance on standardization of education, over to the top emphasis on testing, and its hyper-focus on competition. Just like its older cousin, No Child Left Behind, at the end of the day, Race to the Top will most likely go down in the history of education reform as just another failed and misguided educational reform. As someone who has worked in trenches with teachers since its inception, I have seen no improvement in education, but I have seen a great deal of deterioration in working conditions of the schools.

The biggest problem for those of us working in the schools brought on by Race to the Top has only brought is the enormous amount of new regulation, new restrictions, and new mandates that take more of our valuable time that could otherwise be used teaching and working with our students. For example, in North Carolina we now spend even more time prepping students for tests and administering tests, because in our state we subject our students to more standardized tests than has ever been done in state history. The education practitioners in the schools are also having to spend an enormous amount of time learning new software and data collection programs, purchased with Race to the Top funding, and these programs still are not fully functional and are too often causing data errors and more work staff in the schools. Because of constant glitches, staff have to take even more time trying to make this technology work. The constant failures of all this technology only adds to the burden our teachers  face in the classroom. This added technological burden comes at a time when teachers have more students in their classrooms than ever, and less instructional materials and text materials than ever, all because of a governor and state legislature unwilling to fund education in North Carolina. I scratch my head in wonder, because the philosophy behind charter schools, for which Race to the Top advocates, is to allow schools to operate with less red tape and less restriction because that is somehow better, yet our own government and state department of instruction turns around and heaps more regulation, more state mandates, and more red tape on how we operate. If that regulation is so bad, then why keep pushing more and more of it? Go figure! Ultimately, what Race to the Top has done to those of us in the schools is heap a ton of new rules, a gaggle of new mandates, a host of floundering new software and data systems, and an extra large dose of standardization and testing on our heads. 

In a time when we should be emphasizing the personalization of education in North Carolina, we're still trying to turn our schools into efficient factories to churn out students with high test scores. Somehow our leadership has come to believe that high test scores is the only equivalent to being college and career ready, when in fact, such thinking may only mean students are good test-takers. Instead to pursuing the false promises of standardization, we should be turning our schools into places where innovation, creativity, and collaboration thrive. Such schools are the opposite of standardized, one-size fits all schools we currently have.

What is the answer? The answer is, perhaps its time to let go of this fetish that if we somehow test students more and hold teachers accountable to those test scores no matter what, our students will learn more. We keep ramping up the testing, changing standards, but we cut instructional materials and professional development funding. We keep thinking that if we make the test stakes high enough, somehow teachers will miraculously rise to the occasion. What's happening instead is teachers are saying, "I quit," leaving the profession and/or moving to other states in increasing numbers. As a school leader, it becomes harder and harder to promote teaching as a career opportunity.

What our state leadership does not fully understand is that this massive increase of teacher turnover in North Carolina isn't just about pay; it's the working conditions too. With all this standardization, testing, and mandates coming down from Raleigh due to Race to the Top, it is getting less and less fulfilling to be a teacher and educator in North Carolina. Teachers are being treated more and more like factory workers whose job is to work on a assembly line and churn out students with high test scores. If they don't, then they're branded less effective or worse. Teacher professional judgment has been slowly replaced with test scores and systems of test data. In a word, being a teacher in North Carolina has become less about being a professional, and more about being an assembly-line worker, and if production isn't met, then you're out! The working conditions caused by Race to the Top and our state's efforts to meet its mandates has made being an educator in North Carolina much, much less palatable.

What then is the way out? In years past, these kinds of reform measures usually run their course and those pushing it move on to other things, then they slowly die out. This time, my fear is that our public education system will not survive. Race to the Top's push to standardize, its push to elevate testing to an even higher level of importance than No Child Left Behind, and its incessant focus on using competition to try to better education is leaving our schools tangled in a mess of new testing. It is leaving our teachers demoralized and dejected. It is turning our students off to schools and education. It is turning our schools into places of discord and competition instead of collaboration. It is making it much more difficult to personalize and meet the needs of students because we are too busy trying to meet the needs of latest federal or state mandate. I can only hope that our public education system survives it all.

Small high schools are necessary because they help school districts fill a niche, that if left unfilled, parents will seek alternatives outside public schools. While I do not consider myself an avid supporter of increasing the number of charter schools and school vouchers, I understand why there's interest in options for schools. Instead of constantly complaining about the increase of charter schools and vouchers, perhaps school districts need to seriously question the design of those schools they are offering parents. School districts can provide parents with high school options, but they must be willing to let go of their preconceived notions about what high schools should look like, and be willing to rethink high school design in general.

Around 2005, the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation and others were funding small high schools because it was recognized that large, factory-assembly-line high schools were failing too many kids. If I remember correctly, a study at the time called them "Drop-Out Factories" because there were so many instances of high schools with drop out rates well over 50 percent. Now, many of those once supporting small high schools, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, have moved on to other educational endeavors. They argued that smaller high schools are more expensive to operate, offer too few educational opportunities as compared to larger ones, and they don't produce the test scores, at least at level of return for the investment. In addition, small high schools cannot churn out "credentialed students" in the same cheap and efficient manner as large, assembly-line, factory high schools. But there's a reason why "drop-out" factories exist. No one-size-meets-every-kids-need high school exists, and I doubt it will ever exist. That's why we need small high schools too.

But I can't help but ask, is the goal of a high school to churn out students who have the appropriate credentials stamped in their curriculum vitae, or is the goal of high school to foster individuals who are life-long learners, who are knowledgeable and engaged citizens who can contribute back to society and the world? At the heart of this large high school efficiency model is the mistaken belief that having high school credentials equals potential success later in life. This belief persists in spite of the fact that real skills, dispositions, aptitudes, and habits of mind are the real determinants of success later in life. While statistically, we can say "having a high school diploma" means a student is more likely to graduate and be productive and successful, we forget we aren't dealing with numbers; we're dealing with the lives of real people. Perhaps educational reformers aren't really looking for new and powerful designs for high schools and ways of reforming school; what they really want are cheap and efficient designs. And, in their decision-making efforts, they use test scores, though every educator knows how imperfect those are.

Ultimately, when all your thinking centers around values of cheapness and efficiency, you must compromise on others. The result is an imperfect, large comprehensive high school that can't possibly meet the needs of every student. So you turn to credentialing as your sole object, and engage in building large, factory-model high schools that can roll the students through and stamp them proficient as they jump through a series of prescribed hoops and declare them "graduates" when they've completed the hoop-jumping.

There are real problems at the heart of this obstinate belief is that only the comprehensive high school can serve the needs of all its students.  I have been a teacher for many years in larger, assembly-line high schools, and I have also served as an administrator in them. I have also been principal of a small, redesigned high school too. We know what typically happens in the large assembly-line high school. The top 10 or 20 percent of students get the attention and focus from the school community, which includes top athletes as well. At the other end, students who struggle severely, fail multiple classes, and who are constantly in trouble also receive attention and focus from the staff. There is a large group in the middle who make up the bulk of students. These students are the quiet majority. They make no noise and can exist anonymously in high school for four years.They quietly go about the business of "getting their credentials" so they can graduate. While there have been programs like AVID and others who have tried to target these students, these programs fail to understand a program won't fix this problem. It's a design problem, not a program problem. The design problem is that the whole idea of a large, cheap, efficient credentialing system is simply incapable of addressing the needs of these middle students. These students might be in school. They may or may not have adequate grades. They may or may not be involved in arts or other programs. But the bottom line, they are largely unengaged in learning and are more engaged in just getting their credentials in the form of a diploma and get on with life.

The answer for addressing the needs of all students is not to continue to try to tweak the large, assembly-line model high school and force it to serve all students. Large high schools are cheap and efficient credentialing systems, not systems for personalizing education. That model is incapable of serving all students for the same reasons that small high schools can't meet the needs of all students either. Instead of a one-size-fits-all high school, we need a variety of high schools, small and large, academic and career-oriented, theme-based and STEM. Instead of continuing to just build these large, mullti-million dollar relics of the 20th century, we need to offer students and their parents choices. And, as indicated at the start of this, if we don't, they are going to look for solutions outside of public education.

“If tomorrow, every teacher in America spent 20 minutes of class time asking each student what her or his passion was, and then later used that information to understand each student more deeply and differentiate their instruction accordingly, education would take giant positive steps forward overnight.” Marc Prensky, From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning

Sometimes the solutions that have the biggest impact on the most difficult issues our schools face aren't complicated, scientific solutions; they are solutions staring us right in the face. One of those issues with obvious solutions is how to deal with disengaged, disconnected students. Because our education system asks students to “check their interests and passions at the door” widespread student disengagement in our schools is stubborn and persistent. Our education system stubbornly hangs on to the “impersonal, assembly-line-approach” of the 20th century that did not concern itself with students’ interests and passions. Such a system cares not what students think, nor what students care about. That same underlying, obsolete philosophy is the reason why we struggle constantly with students who see what we are doing in school as totally irrelevant. In the 21st century, if we want to reach all students, we should take Prensky’s advice. Let’s pause today, and talk with students about their passions and interests, then use the new understanding to engage them in classroom learning they care about.

The truth is we don’t have to wait for waves of reform and experts on high to have a big impact on student disengagement and disconnection. We can begin to re-engage and reconnect students immediately. In From Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom: Hopeful Essays for 21st Century Learning, Marc Prensky offers teachers a list of what he calls “Easy to Do---Big Impact Actions Teachers Can Take to Connect with Students.” This kind of list gives teachers an immediate list of actions to begin the process of re-engaging and reconnecting with students. But to implement these kinds of actions, our schools must set aside their “Just-take-your-medicine-approach-to-education” in which students are told your passions and interests are irrelevant.  At the heart of the "educational medicine philosophy" is the belief that, “Education is done to students; it doesn't matter if they take part or not. It’s for their own good.” With that kind of thinking it is no wonder we can’t get a grip on the drop-out rate and our students see our schools as the most boring places on earth.

What do we do? Is it still acceptable to just accept those disengaged, disconnected students as casualties or collateral damage of an education system that destroys passion, imagination, and creativity? Not if our goal is to bring back the disengaged students and lower drop-out rates and ensure all students are ready for life in the 21st century. We can begin today by doing little things that reconnect our classrooms and schools to students’ passions and interests. Marc Prensky’s list of “Easy to Do---Big Impact Actions to Connect with Students” might be a starting point. But, inspired by Prensky, I would like to offer my own list based on my own 16 years in the classroom teaching everybody’s favorite subject, English language arts. (Said with obvious sarcasm!)

To immediately begin reconnecting with students, teachers can:

• Listen to students more, and do less “professing” and “telling.” The old myth that “students are going to sit on the edge of their seats and eagerly await your words of wisdom and knowledge” was never true.  Begin today by taking an “almost-vow-of-silence” and let students do more talking and sharing of what they think. Of course you are going to have to resist your eager impulses to butt in and share what you think too, but giving students time to share and discuss will go a long way to re-engaging and reconnecting them to your classroom and your content.
• Make it relevant---connect content with current events and the real world. If students come in chattering about the latest happenings in town, the country or the world, find a way to connect that interest to content, but do it subtly. If students know they are being railroaded into learning something, they disconnect faster than I do when getting a phone call from a telemarketer. If you want students to reconnect, you have to bring your content back to the real-world and that means bringing in the things they are passionate and care about.
• Prensky says to reconnect students, we “treat them like learning partners." I agree. Throw out the window the whole idea that you are the “Lord-of-the-Realm-of-Knowledge” and be with students as a fellow learner. The best example of this one comes from my days in the classroom. If I asked students to write an essay, I did it too. There was total surprise when I pulled out my handwritten response to an essay assignment and shared it with them, just before they did theirs. I did caution them though, “Anyone caught stealing my ideas” would be doomed to an endless lecture in their most hated subject, and I would arrange it. Treating students like learning partners means “YOU ARE A LEARNER TOO!" You have to get your hands dirty too. You can re-engage and reconnect with students by treating them as partners in learning, not as empty vessels in which you will pour forth your knowledge.
• Get students using their tools of choice and don’t get hung up on the methodology. If they want to draft their essay on their laptop or iPhone, let them do it. If they want to want write out their first draft in purple ink, let them do it. We all remember those teachers who demanded that we meet painstaking standards such as write only on one side of the paper, in blue or black ink, only on the night of a new moon. In fact, if I were totally honest, when I started teaching I found myself making those same impossible demands. No wonder so many of my students didn't turn in their essays or bothering doing them. I still remember one of my high school English teachers throwing my first draft away because I put my name on the top-left instead of top-right. When I began teaching, you would have thought I would have shown more mercy, but I suppose the adage, "We teach as we were taught" is hard to break. But using these kinds of classroom practices today will push a student to place you and your content in the dead zone for eternity. Letting students choose their tools and tactics will go a long way to re-engaging and reconnecting them to your content and your classroom.

If we want our schools and classrooms to effectively deal with the disconnected, disengaged student, we don’t have to wait for the experts to come up with complicated, research-based solutions. We can tackle the problem of disengaged, disconnected students immediately. We might have to repent and give up the mantra that says, “It’s my job to teach, so if students don’t get it, it’s their fault,” but there are immediate steps we can take transform our classrooms and schools into places where we engage students’ passions and interests, not turn them into Zombies.

Last night, the #edchat topic was, "How should teachers deal with colleagues who are comfortable with 19th century and punitive measures for non-compliant students?" Judging by the responses, many teachers either felt they could gently prod this colleague to changing his or her practice. Others did not see this their responsibility at all. They saw it as the responsibility of the administrator.

At first glance, I would agree that the administrator does have the responsibility to address the issue of teachers using outdated practices. However, I think the real solution is a bit more complicated and can be captured with another question: How can a teacher engaged in outdated pedagogy and practice possibly exist in a true 21st century school? Should the school environment not be so innovative and challenging that such teaching is impossible? Perhaps the real problem is that we have been fooling ourselves into thinking our school is a "21st Century School" when it's not. Just maybe our school systemically allows teachers to continue do what they've always done and avoid growing personally and professionally. 

As long as you have a school, school district, and school system that allows people to use "outdated methodology in instruction and educational practice" such practices are going to exist. In other fields such as medicine, obsolete practice is rooted out by a culture that values innovation and pushes out obsolescence. Why can't schools foster that same kind of culture?

What would a school or school district that has a culture that makes obsolete educational practice impossible look like? What are the operating principles? Here are some ideas to start with.

1. A strong expectation of personal and professional growth permeates the school and school district environment. Everyone, beginning with leadership, are lifelong learners, and their every action is focused to that end. There's an attitude of perpetual learning and professional development surrounding everything that is done.

2. The school and school district culture values risk-taking more than playing it safe. Valuing risk-taking takes courage from leadership and everyone else. It means accepting failure as part of learning. Leadership that values risk-taking can't ask others to take risks if they themselves aren't willing to do so.

3. Leadership in the school includes more than the principal. When the leadership includes strong teacher leadership, it is difficult for those not growing professionally to exist. Teacher leadership means there are peers pushing those teachers to develop professionally.

4. Collaboration among staff is the norm. When issues and problems and challenges are viewed as "our issues/problems/challenges" then everyone is expected to be a part of the solution. This means those who are hanging on to outdated practice find it more difficult to do so. Their colleagues are pushing them to take ownership of the school's future and they can't continue to exist in their tiny isolated compartment within the school.

5. There's a strong sense of entrepreneurship among staff regarding the school. They feel that it is "their school." Staff who feel this aren't just provided a token opportunity to give feedback on School Improvement Plans. They have a say in the direction and focus of the school because it is genuinely their school too. Teachers engaged in obsolete practice can't continue to operate in an obsolete manner because colleagues push them to do better.

So, in answer to last night's #edchat question, "How should teachers deal with colleagues who are comfortable with 19th century methods and punitive measures for non-compliant students?" I submit that the answer isn't just a question of what the teacher should do or what the principal should do. It is a systemic problem that can only be addressed by creating places that make obsolete educational practices impossible. It's a question addressed by creating a school or school district culture that will not tolerate obsolete educational practice.

Diane Ravitch recently was interviewed by Dan Rather on HDNet. During that interview, she emphasized several things the public needs to know about the current state of public schools.

• "No Child Left Behind has set our public schools on the road to destruction." I have often wondered if the true motivation behind that legislation was to simply make sure schools fail so that arguments for privatization would be stronger. Perhaps that's not the true intent of the law, but it has been the result.
• No Child Left Behind, with its tremendous emphasis on testing, has not succeeded in teaching anybody anything. It has turned schools into test-prep centers, where the only thing that matters is the scores. The scores even matter more than the students.
• Tests should not be used to make high stakes decisions. Our politicians around the country are doing just that. Florida is basing whether a student is promoted on "the test." Many more states have adopted merit pay schemes and tenure schemes that are tied to testing. It would seem that politicians have more faith in these tests than the ones who give them every year.

Check out Diane Ravitch's interview below.




No Child Left Behind has been a disaster. Those of us who have worked in schools that received the infamous label of "AYP-Not Met" know first hand how all focus turns to "the test." Students are asked to give up electives such as art or music so they can attend "one more tutoring session." It really is sad that we do that  to our kids.