Regional statewide systems of support meeting
focuses on SEA-LEA dialogue
April 17-18, 2008
The New England Comprehensive Center and The Education Alliance at Brown University co-hosted a regional meeting on statewide systems of support that engaged more than fifty state and district representatives from Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island in two days of intensive study and discussion. With assistance from the Northeast Regional Resource Center (NERRC) and the National Response to Intervention Center, the April 2008 event focused on seven key topics in the interplay between state education systems and student outcomes.
In order to give participants time to grapple with the topics in some depth, the meeting was structured as a series of two-and-a-half to three-hour topic discussions, complemented by two-hour state team meetings.
Participants appeared to appreciate the opportunity to take time and reflect with others, citing "face-to-face sustained conversations," "time to learn," "time with state people," "focus on big ideas," and "two full days to devote to thinking about this!" among the event's benefits. Other highly valued elements of the event were copious opportunities to interact with representatives from other states and a talk by the event's "critical reflector," Thomas Payzant of Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.
Payzant was struck, he said, by how well the discussion groups had worked together, cooperating more like "long-time discussants than ad hoc groups," noting, "I couldn't tell from the conversation automatically who was who. The comments, interestingly enough, were not framed for the most part in terms of people making sure their stake in the ground was clear."
He began his reflections by remarking that the biggest change that has occurred in education over his career has been the emergence of standards-based reform. "You know the drill," he said. "Clear expectations for what students should learn, a curriculum of sufficient rigor for teachers to teach and students to learn, professional development to help teachers improve their instruction, and both formative and summative assessments. And the idea was not so much that students just had to master content but to apply what they know for a purpose." The quality of classroom instruction and school leadership are the two most important variables over which schools have some control and that affect student achievement, he said.
"I didn't even know what the phrase Theory of Action meant at the beginning of the conversations about standards-based reform, but I do know now that ... if you focus on the quality of instruction in the classroom and the strategy for the improvement, and if you focus on the quality and leadership and principal as an instructional leader, then you can raise student achievement."
The "Egg-Crate" Culture
A systems thinker who has been shaped by federal experience (assistant secretary of elementary and secondary education under President Bill Clinton) as well classroom and district experience, Payzant praised the discussion groups for tackling issues through cross-functional teams to shift away from the "default culture" to one that is more tightly aligned at all levels.
"When I say the default culture," he explained, "It is the culture that exists in most federal, state, and school district offices as well as in schools and classrooms. And I don't mean to be derogatory when I say it's basically an egg-crate model, in offices and in schools. It is culture of atomization and isolation. We hire the best teachers we can get for the schools, we assign them to a classroom, and they close the door and try to do the best they can with the students they have. That's the default culture, one with very little opportunity for the teachers to work with and learn from each other, which professionals in other fields routinely do."
Talking Terms
He identified seven terms he heard during the discussions. "I heard them used a lot," he said. "And I think one of your challenges is to have a conversation about them, as a team, and what do you think they mean? And I don't say this to be negative in any way, because the intent I think was right, but in a couple of groups, when they began discussing innovations, the term partnerships showed up on the list. Partnerships are not innovative. There might be innovative ways of thinking about different kinds of partnerships that might make a difference in terms of the overall strategy for what you want to do. I'll come back to some of these others. But there was a problem in terms of sensing whether we had common understanding of what these words meant."
He began with assessment. "If you remember, the standards-based reform framework envisioned two types of assessments. Formative assessments would produce data for teachers and principals that provide a sense of what is happening during the year so that mid-course corrections can be made based on reflection about instruction and curriculum, what is working and what is not. The second type of assessment is summative and given at the end of the school year with the data used for accountability purposes. And now we see increasing use of interim assessments. They could be formative in nature, but they are summative because they may be an end-of-unit test. I think that formative assessments should not be used for accountability purposes, because the only way leaders will get teachers, principals, and others to reflect on the impact of curriculum and instruction on student learning during the year is to use the data to help them improve their practice and not as accountability measures.
"There was talk about alignment and coherence, in terms of connecting these pieces as a system. I want to use a little bit of the Boston experience, which I'm not trying to sell to you, but rather as one framework for thinking about this work. ... The challenge that intrigued me in Boston was, can you take a midsize urban school district and improve a whole system of schools rather than just create a few more good ones? If we are going to take instructional improvement to scale, we have to be systemic thinkers. I heard that word used a lot in the various sessions. Here is one way of framing whole school improvement plans."
The Seven Essentials
"The core essential is instruction—it's all about the instructional core. The great thing about No Child Left Behind is that it has required us to look at the data in ways that all too many educators have not, in the past.
"Data are essential too. We know more about how to use different kinds of data, and use data to drive decision-making, and to recognize that there are many ways in which we can use data inappropriately. Data must be our friends, not our enemies.
"Now these aren't listed in hierarchical order. Essentially, two through seven support the instructional core," Payzant said. He described professional development, the third essential, as "getting teachers the kind of support that they need to get better at what they do. I do think we have some significant issues, debates and disagreements about what is the best way to meet the needs of teachers ... The way we have traditionally approached professional development is to set up our salary schedules, with incentives for teachers to take more courses and get more degrees. Professional development often is not connected to the improvement of instruction in the classroom. I think we have to rethink what teachers need to improve their practice and align it with what happens in successful schools and classrooms. And I'll bet in your states and in some of your school districts, there is no real control over what courses teachers take, or a way of connecting the value-added of those courses to the bottom line and how they will become more effective teachers in their classrooms."
On leadership, Payzant said, "I don't know you all that well, but you're professionally good examples of shared leadership. What happens when you go back? In terms of conversations that you've had here? This is important at the state, district, school, and maybe even the classroom level. How will you approach shared leadership?" Shared leadership, he said, "provides opportunities for teacher leader roles working with the principal on the Instructional Leadership Team to develop the whole school improvement plan."
He explained the other three essentials. "Allocation of resources focuses on developing the budget as the financial plan for executing the education plan. How many budgets have you seen where you have a tough time making those connections? It seems so fundamental and so grounded in common sense, but often it doesn't happen.
"Family and community engagement is essential to connect the learning in the home where the adults in the lives of children and their first teachers with the work of the adults teaching children in our schools who are the professional educators. Strategies for doing this effectively are essential in a school improvement plan. No school can ignore the importance of operations, which attends to areas such as scheduling, hiring, maintenance, communications, safety, and so on. We've had a flip in terms of my experiences in the last 10 or 11 years where operations were front and center for superintendents, and teaching and learning was a second thought, other than evaluating teachers."
Culture Clash
"So how does the culture have to change? Some of you talked a little bit about that and it was around key things such as teaming, based on what you're doing now. Well, if you're going to do more in terms of teams—and we're talking about our students graduating from high school, not only with academic skills, but moving on to post-secondary education of some kind—globalization and the 21st century will require being able to work in teams, to be innovative, creative."
Payzant drew on his Boston experience to discuss teacher training, describing how Boston started its own teaching training program five years ago. "It was the Boston Public Schools' alternative certification program," he explained. "It was a very targeted program; we recruited those who wanted to become math, science, and special education teachers, and/or work with English language learners. We wanted at least 50% of each cohort to be people of color. We set up a six-week intensive summer program, using our own curriculum design for courses. We asked U Mass Boston to give credit for Boston courses toward a master's degree. ... We cherry-picked the instructors for the courses. Some were from local colleges and universities, and some were from Boston Public Schools. We designed a course of study for classes held on Fridays throughout the academic year. Four days a week, residents were in full-time internships in classrooms with accomplished teachers in Boston schools. The program started the first year with about 15 residents. This year there are 85. Ultimately the goal will be 100 teachers completing the program each year. With these numbers about 20% of the teachers Boston needs will come from this program.
"Other teacher training institutions will still be major providers, but the Boston program will focus on the hardest to fill areas. Residents received a $10,000 stipend and an additional forgivable $10,000 loan if they successfully completed the program and taught in Boston Public Schools for at least three years. Obviously, the retention rate of residents is very high for the first three years. The retention rates of residents who are now in their fourth and fifth year of teaching are in the high 80s. The rate of teacher turn-over has been 50% in the first five years. The residents will continue to bring that number down."
The "Facebook Generation" of Teachers
"Now, think about the cultural piece, because we're clustering residents in schools, and a lot of them are staying on. They don't want to be in isolation. They don't have the fear of putting data on the table. They don't have the fear of constructive criticism. The students I'm working with at Harvard now, in the master's program, tell me they don't want to work in schools with an egg-crate structure. The Boston Teacher Residency Program is helping in the schools with clusters of residents. They want to work in teams, to engage in collaboration, and learn from each other.
"So one way of thinking is to find ways to schedule common planning time, encourage teachers to form study groups, engage them in data analyses and encourage observation of each other's teaching. Do you think the generation that is willing to put their whole life on Facebook is going to be worried about hiding in their classrooms thinking they can have the autonomy of doing what they want to do and nobody will really find out? I don't think so."
Leadership Challenges
Acknowledging the conflicting roles education leaders play, whether at the state, district, or school level, between serving as compliance monitors and instructional supporters, Payzant urged leaders to accept their dual role. "You all are struggling through the yin and the yang of what you have to do. Compliance requirements are everywhere. The United States Department of Education expects the states to comply with federal legislation, the state departments of education expect the school district to comply with state legislation, and school districts expect principals to comply with school board policies, and principals lay it all on the line for the classroom teachers. Is compliance going to go away? No. Should it completely? Probably not, but it should not create a climate of fear or result in our loss of focus on teaching and learning."
Payzant defined "the most challenging and important issue we face in public education in America over the next 10 years" as "where are the teachers and leaders going to come from? And how are we going to deal with all that? At the end of the day," he said, "80% of school district budgets are for salaries and benefits and 90 to 95% in schools are also for people. Who are the people going to be, what is the skill set they're going to need to have, what will the role of the state, district, and school be in addressing human capital challenges? If you are in a state agency or in a school district or school, leaders must think about human capital challenges and how the elements in the slide are aligned and coherent. How do they tie together?"
"The system is not coherent at this point," he said. "There's a lot of noise out there in terms of coherence in training and certification and licensure, to choose only two examples. I think you're aware of this; you understand what part of the challenge is. So as you go back to your work, think: where does this all fit within your respective sphere of influence?"
He cautioned that the changing nature of work is affecting teaching as well. The teachers he has worked with, who exited a master's program at about age 28, "have taught four to six years. They've done some other interesting things, and they expect to be in six to eight different jobs over the next 30 years and some of them expect to have more than one career. We must change the culture in schools and school districts to attract and retain those who will make a positive difference for all of the children in the classroom and schools where they serve."
Differentiation and Integration
"I heard you talking, although you didn't always use these words, about differentiation and integration. You're very concerned, and I think properly so, about all of the dissonance that's out there in curriculum and standards, around what's effective, what's not effective. And I think that there's no easy answer—that the challenge of organizations is to think about balance between differentiation and integration...
"You should be having the conversation so you understand what is differentiated and why, and what is integrated and why." The impact will be felt at every level of expertise, he said—state, district, and school. "The idea is to have that integration very clear. So you've got some work to do in this area, and there are no easy answers, whether you are leading at the federal, state, district, school, or classroom level.
"I repeat again my belief that we have to embrace the analyses and use of data to make good decisions as leaders. Transparency is essential with respect to what we're trying to do, how we are doing it and what the results are. Transparency can go a long way towards helping to improve relationships and decision-making. I believe that you recognize that those are important things that we all need to work on."
Going Forward
"I didn't hear as much conversation focused on instructional core leadership." he declared. "I didn't see people making as many direct connections. I think they're there, and it may have been because you were focusing on other kinds of things and you have just thought that this was implicit in everything you are doing. I would suggest that you need to be more explicit about that at each stage....
"There was some talk of coordinating services, among departments in your states. Perhaps early childhood education and the years from birth-to-five would be a good place to start with education, health, social service, and other departments talking about how they can work together. Getting human service, juvenile justice, social service, and education professional in the same room and discovering where collaboration could begin is a place to start. And of course the big elephant at the table is the various funding streams, and everybody fears that their's may be compromised if a new way of thinking emerges. But what about our ideal of meeting the needs of the whole child and understanding the challenges of doing so in the context of the whole family? This is hard to do, but we must find a way to begin."
Payzant remarked on the ease with which the groups worked together, asserting that had he come in from the outside, "I would have thought that you've been working together for a long time. The way you treated each other, and the openness in the conversations I observed, were impressive. That may not be part of the culture back home, but you know that you can do it and you can be the role models and take the leadership for others who are trying to do it as well.
"You must take the responsibility to not let what was special in your experience disappear. And the first thing you're going to run into is probably a scheduling problem. See how these structures and systems get in the way? Often the challenges for changing and improving them are technical and can be resolved because there exist proofs elsewhere of how to do so. You can find them. So sometimes you have to step back and look at those, because that's part of the problem. Everyone here really cares about their work and wants to make a difference for children. I'm not surprised; you wouldn't be here if that wasn't what you believed. And it is so fundamental, and may seem to you to be self-evident, but for too many people ... that's not necessarily the case."
From lists to actions
"That's where this conference helps make connections, particularly when you're leading from the middle. Who's got your back? I'll tell you, it doesn't get any easier, even though you're on the top of the heap and in charge. You probably have more people who've got your back when you're in the middle than when you're at the top. I understand the differences and you have been discussing them here and that is encouraging. But it is going to take some risks on your part. You were great at making lists...and it is so hard to get from the list to picking out where the connections are and where the priorities are going to be in terms of the work and where you are going to start."
The challenge is going to be focusing, he said. "Go home and go deeply in one or two areas that you agree, as a team, is the place to start to get you to the next goal that you are trying to achieve." "Superficiality and gray areas will get very few results," he cautioned.
"It's been a privilege to work with you," Payzant said in closing. "I learned a lot from listening to what you are doing and why it is important. I have a lot of respect for your work. I know it's not easy, but it can be done and you can make a difference. Don't ever give up on that. You will succeed."