What Type of Chancellor Do We Need in New York City: An “Innovator” or a “Collaborator”?

On Thursday I helped facilitate an event, “How does the New ESSA Law Impact my School?” – about fifty principals and teacher union (UFT) staff listening to and interacting with two experts, one from the Department of Education and the other from the UFT: labor and management, principals and teachers, working together to comprehend a complex new law changing school assessment. I think I might even understand the difference between proficiency, growth, progress, measurements and goals.

Ironically the same day the NY Daily News published an op ed by former Bloomberg Department of Education staffer Andrew Kirtzman (“Needed: An Education Innovator to Follow Carmen Farina”) The innovators Kirtzman praises described themselves as “disrupters,” breaking apart a school system and building another based on their ideas. Kirtzman’s innovators/disrupters created turmoil. Over 2000 teachers in the ATR pool, Open Market transfers, aka, teacher free agency, Fair Student Funding, change after change, a chaotic era antagonized the work force. Teachers despised the Bloomberg/Klein/Walcott, “innovations” that were actually an attempt to end tenure, weaken and/or destroy the union, an attempt that rallied teachers and created a vibrant opposition. Farina’s first job was to clean out the Augean Stables.

Obama/Duncan/King pumped out hundreds of millions of dollars: the Common Core, evaluating teachers by student test scores, in New York State four tests for prospective teachers, extending teacher probation, and, choice aka, charter schools. Once again, alienating the work force; teachers in classrooms across the nation and the state.

The most successful corporations, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Zappos, all build teams of employees, teams with wide latitude to create and collaborate.

One of the most successful entrepreneurs is Tony Hsieh, the president and CEO of Zappos, an online shoe and apparel site.  In a new book, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose, Hsieh argues that workplace culture is the key to highly effective employees that create a highly effective business enterprise. Spend a few minutes listening to Hsieh here.

 Workplace culture in New York City has dramatically changed, from the toxic culture of the previous administration to an increasingly collaborative culture. The 2014 teacher contract created PROSE schools,

Of all the breakthrough ideas in the 2014 contract, none has more potential to empower teachers and their school communities than the PROSE initiative. PROSE stands for Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence, and the opportunities for redesign at the heart of this program are predicated on the UFT’s core belief that the solutions for schools are to be found within school communities, in the expertise of those who practice our profession.

See the PROSE application and rubric for 2018 »

Over 100 schools are currently in the program, bending management/union rules, redesigns, school communities finding better ways to deliver services to students.

The change in culture also comes from Albany, Commissioner Elia and Regent Chancellor Rosa involved the education community across the state in major policy decisions. The creation of the state ESSA plan included scores of meetings, hundreds of educators from all levels participating, thousands of comments, months and months of discussions created a plan that moves from how many kids reach a proficient grade (3.0) on a state test to a system that combines proficiency, growth and progress. The topic I referenced above, the work groups included all the educational stakeholders.

The former administration imposed a teacher evaluation system based on Value-Added Measurements, student test scores, to assess teacher quality. After a long, arduous battle Governor Cuomo agreed to toll the system for four years, teachers are currently assessed by a system called “the matrix,” a combination of teacher observations and locally-agreed upon measurements of student learning (MOSL) and student learning objectives (SLO).

With the moratorium in its third year the commissioner has asked for feedback from staff across the state.

See the APPR survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/commissionersAPPRsurvey

BTW, fill it out and submit- join thousands of teachers across the state.

We’ve had enough of “innovative” leadership, leadership firmly convinced they possess the Holy Grail, leadership imposed so-called innovations, and moved on to their next job.

The Gates Foundation has a new director of K-12 education, Bob Hughes, the former leader of New Visions for Public Schools, an organization that created and works with small public high schools. (He was also one of the attorneys on the successful Campaign for Fiscal Equity law suit team). I know, I know, we’ll all suspicious of the word Gates. I worked with Bob for a few years, I respect him. The Foundation is requesting proposals for networks of schools.

The networks we invest in will use a continuous improvement process to improve student outcomes by tackling problems that are common across the network. At the foundation, we believe connecting schools that are facing similar challenges will increase the likelihood of school leaders identifying the approach that is most likely to be effective in their school. We also believe that principals and teachers, through focused planning, collaboration, and data-sharing within networks, can raise achievement and increase the academic success of Black, Latino, and low-income students

I arrived early for a meeting with a principal and asked whether it was possible to push up the meeting, the school secretary, “No, he’s teaching.” I was surprised, “He’s covering a class of an absent teacher?” The secretary: “No, he teaches first period.” I was intrigued.

When we met I asked the principal why he was teaching a first period class.

“I take three classes into the gym; we do exercises, maybe some yoga, a few basketball skills. it allows me to get the temperature of the kids, it allows three teachers to meet and co-plan for the day.”

I asked if I could speak with one of the teachers, the principal, “Of course.”

The teacher: “We love it, we can concentrate on particular kids, particular skills, I’m really enjoying this year and I feel we’re making a difference.”

There are school leaders and teachers across the city collaborating to improve their schools, unfortunately the “ideas” are rarely shared, after all, what do teachers know (sadly too often the higher-ups attitude).

The Gates Networks, the UFT-Department of Education PROSE schools, the Performance-Based Assessment Consortium, all move schools and kids forward, all make teaching more rewarding.

We need a collaborative leader, a chancellor who can build on the trust that Farina created. We need a chancellor who understands the answers are in the schools and classrooms. Distributive leadership throughout the ranks strengthens ties, gives every voice a place within strong school cultures.

Gates, Again: The Gates Foundation Commits $1.7 Billion to the Creation of “Networks of Schools,” Creating a “Bottom Up” Model, or, Swimming Against the Tide?

Our nation has a long history of philanthropy, the wealthy supporting “worthy causes;” the Bloomberg School of Public Health at John Hopkins, the Langone Medical Center at New York University, buildings at colleges named after a deep-pocketed contributor, and, recently, vast dollars to promote a specific cause. The Walton Family Foundation’s cause is charter schools, “The foundation has invested more than $407 million to grow high-quality charter schools since 1997.”

Daniel Loeb, a billionaire hedge fund manager chairs the Eva Moskowitz Success Academy board, and, according to Chalkbeat, “donated millions of dollars to the network.”

Bill Gates, at a speech at the Council of Great City Schools (10/19/17) announced a new major project, described below, revolves around the creation of school networks and the use of data.

“… we will expand investments in innovative research to accelerate progress for underserved students.

Overall, we expect to invest close to $1.7 billion in U.S. public education over the next five years.”

This is the third major investment in education by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. His first, the small high school initiative, Gates dollars, $600 million, helped in the creation of 1200 schools around the nation, with mixed results, as reported by Gates.

From our work creating small schools to increase high school graduation and college-readiness rates, we saw how small schools could be responsive to their students’ needs. While the results in places like New York City, Los Angeles, and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas were encouraging, we realized that districts were reluctant to scale small schools because of the financial and political costs of closing existing schools and starting new ones.

 In New York City the Gates dollars were funneled through New Visions for Public Schools to community-based organizations that supported the school theme. I worked at New Visions for a few years on a team that worked to support schools; meaning providing expertise in a range of areas. Highly dedicated people working in schools run by a number of different superintendents with differing goals and leadership styles.

The small schools movement predated the Gates initiative; the Chancellor’s High School District phased out large dysfunctional schools and created small theme-based schools. While the management model was structurally different, the small schools created by the Chancellor’s District were at least as effective as the Gates schools. One might ask whether the 600 million could have been put to better use.

Gates then moved on to the next big thing, the Measures of Effective Teaching project, a massive undertaking.

Our investments in the Measures of Effective Teaching provided important knowledge about how to observe teachers at their craft, rate their performance fairly, and give them actionable feedback. While these insights have been helpful to the field, we saw that differentiating teachers by performance, and in turn by pay scale, wasn’t enough to solve the problem alone.

 A three year-long study involving 3,000 teachers across the nation “provided important knowledge,” however, “wasn’t enough to solve the problem alone.”

The study placed 360 degree cameras in classrooms, video recording lessons, coding the teacher behavior, and attempting to isolate specific teaching behaviors. Unfortunately the study also used pupil performance on tests, value-added measurement (VAM), as the tool to assess teacher performance. Whether intended or not, the use of VAM by Gates added to the movement to assess teacher performance and pay teachers according to increases in test scores.

Two massive project intending to change the face of education that ultimately failed to achieve their goals.

The Foundation is embarking on a new massive project. “Networks of schools.”

In his speech Gates only spoke in general terms,

We anticipate that about 60 percent of this [the 1.7 billion] will eventually support the development of new curricula and networks of schools that work together to identify local problems and solutions . . . and use data to drive continuous improvement.

Many states, districts, and schools now have the data they need to track student progress and achievement, and some are using it to great effect.

If you’re scratching your head and wondering, what are these “networks of schools” and where are they? You’re not alone.

Gates continued,

We will focus our grantmaking on supporting schools in their work to improve student outcomes—particularly for low-income, Black, and Latino students—by partnering with middle and high schools and identifying new approaches that are effective and that could be replicated in other schools.

We will do this by investing in networks of schools to solve common problems schools face by using evidence-based interventions that best fit their needs, and data-driven continuous learning. We will also invest in ensuring that teachers and leaders have what they need to be successful—high-quality preparation, standards-aligned curriculum and tools, accompanied by professional learning opportunities. And we’ll keep our eyes on the horizon; advancing research and development in support of new innovations that will help our education system keep pace with our rapidly changing world.

The Foundation has published a “Request for Information,” a document requesting information from current or former self-designed networks,

We believe when teams of educators within schools and across schools work collaboratively with communities and have a strong partnership with families to solve common problems and continuously improve, change will be more enduring.

Take a look at the Request for Information document here.

The leader of K-12 Education and the new initiative at Gates is Bob Hughes, who led New Visions for Public Schools in New York City.

I first met Bob at the Campaign for Fiscal Equity (CFE) trial. Bob was one of the attorneys leading the heroic effort for fair funding in New York City. I attended about 30 sessions of the 107 session trial reporting the activities of the day to the UFT legal team. A few years later Bob moved to New Visions, and with a $54 million grant managed the creation of small school communities, schools working closely with community partners.  In 2003 I began to work on a team that assisted in the design of new schools and the phase-out of Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn.

Bob and the New Visions staff are dedicated to improving schools, and, in spite of the obstacle of working within a school system that at times was obstructionist, created a network of schools.

In February, 2016 Bob moved from New Visions to the head of K-12 Education at Gates.

From the limited information on the Gates website it appears that the “next big thing” will be an attempt to marry the New Visions model with networks across the nation.

As an example of the model New Visions has created an Open Educational Resources (OER) project; curricula, designed by subject area specialists and classroom teachers. New Visions encourages,

A broad group of teachers participate in ongoing professional development which provides them with support for the use of these materials. [Explore the curricula on the site above – open and free to all]

New Visions has taken over the role of the school district.

New Visions has also created a host of data tools,

Empowering teacher and school administrators through flexible open source tools and resources, the New Visions CloudLab is a home for community driven tool development and support.

I am a supporter of the network approach, the current rigid, top-down, paramilitary structure (salute and comply) has never worked, kids did well not because of the management system, they did well because of the nature of the school population or the extraordinary ability of school or school district leadership.

Schools and school districts should be learning communities, not “absorbers” of the message of the moment.

The New Visions model, the Internationals Network, and a few others are currently embedded within New York City, and, there will be opportunities for other networks.

One interesting possibility, the creation of a PROSE network, a cluster of schools taking advantage of new section of the bargaining agreement that encourages schools to create innovative designs.

PROSE stands for Progressive Redesign Opportunity Schools for Excellence, and the opportunities for redesign at the heart of this program are predicated on the UFT’s core belief that the solutions for schools are to be found within school communities, in the expertise of those who practice our profession.

Hopefully the Bill and Bob team can create interesting options to our current test prep driven school districts.

Superintendents? Networks? How do You Manage a 1600-School System? How Do You Lead and Empower?

How should schools be “managed?”

Elected community school boards? Mayoral Control? Superintendents? Mega Regions? Empowerment? Networks?

Should Chancellors drive educational policy in a top-down hierarchical system? Should superintendents, selected by an elected school board, or appointed by the chancellor, have wide-sweeping authority over day-to-day school operations?

Joel Klein, after moving from one management idea to another settled on the theories of the UCLA Management professor William Ouchi in “Making Schools Work” (2003)

1. Every principal is an entrepreneur
2. Every school controls its own budget
3. Everyone is accountable for student performance and for budgets
4. Everyone delegates authority to those below
5. There is a burning focus on school achievement
6. Every school is a community of learners
7. Families have real choices among a variety of unique schools.

Klein created an odd mix, 60 thinly staffed networks to support, not supervise schools, and, as required by law, superintendents, with no staffs, who conducted Quality Reviews, rated principals and made teacher tenure decisions.

The 25-school networks varied widely in quality, some prospered as schools flourished while others stumbled, the department began to replace network leaders and permanently fold up networks.

At one of the innumerable mayoral candidate panels in 2013, sponsored by the CSA, the principals union, the moderator asked, “Superintendents or Networks?” Each of the candidates, with the exception of Christine Quinn, responded “superintendents” Quinn turned to the audience and asked for a voice vote, the audience, an auditorium filled with principals were divided, and passionate. Many clearly favored returning to a superintendent structure while other strongly favored remaining with networks.

At the rollout of the newly selected superintendents the Chancellor gave a cryptic explanation of the new structure, Chalkbeat reports,

What she didn’t reveal was a plan for overhauling the city’s broader, complicated system of school support, which includes superintendents and school-support networks. But she did say that anyone looking for a full return to old systems in which district superintendents oversaw large staffs might be disappointed with her plans.

“Networks are very important in terms of assisting [schools] with doing their job,” Fariña said.

Meanwhile, Fariña offered plenty of specifics for how superintendents should approach their management of individual schools.

School visits should always be announced, she said. Getting coffee with principals is great, though not as important as visiting classrooms. Taking notes on index cards is a good way to keep track of standout teachers and principals.

Index cards? Do they still make index cards? Please, can someone show the chancellor how to take notes on an I-Phone or an I-Pad or a tablet?

The new UFT contract requires an extended professional session on Tuesdays, with a principal-UFT committee determining the focus of the professional development. 62 schools were approved to make sweeping changes in the contract rules, and half of schools report that curriculum is in place in all subject areas. UFT president Mulgrew announced that superintendents will be doing joint walk-throughs of schools with union reps in the future. At the union delegate meeting many delegates were enthusiastic, others clearly not.

My former district was fully engaged in school-based management, school-based budgeting. A third of the schools jumped on board; parents, teachers and the principal worked together to address both school management and instructional issues, a third of the schools struggled and a third couldn’t care less.

In earlier days a few highly competent superintendents lead; however, does the leadership at the district level create sustained leadership at the school level? The chancellor’s district was a completely top-down model that initially showed substantial academic gains; when the schools were returned to their district the gains rapidly eroded.

In a school system of over 1600 schools what we do know is “one size fits all” fits no one. Some schools may require a structured environment while in others ideas percolate up from classrooms.

Jeff Latto was a middle school principal and I was invited to the school’s Leadership Team meeting. An issue was being vigorous debated, most of the committee favored the idea, and the principal didn’t. At one point the principal declared, “I clearly disagree, everyone else favors the idea, you want to try it, go ahead, just make it work.” I have forgotten the idea, not the role of the school leader. He trusted his staff, and, clearly the staff respected him.

I’ve seen superintendents surrounded with sycophantic staffs, an “emperor with no cloths,” ordering this or that, everyone nodded and nothing actually changed.

I’ve seen angry and hostile staffs that “complied,” reluctantly, and the culture of the school was toxic.

I’ve seen superintendents on hall patrol, superintendents leading professional development sessions, superintendents leading teacher “think tanks,” and others who were great at issuing dreary memoranda.

As the taking heads and the sages criticize Tweed for not coming up with a management strategy the important element is creating structure that both leads and empowers principals and teachers to lead and innovate.

Fred Koury was the founder of City as School High School, one of the first truly alternative high schools. At his retirement party everyone praised Fred, the school was wonderful, Fred was the principal, and, a member of the UFT Executive Board, but Fred demurred; he said, “Wait until we’re two more principals down the road, if the school is still great then I deserve applause for creating something worthwhile.”

The chancellor has to get it right.

Districts or Networks? or, Structures That Support Teaching and Learning? Organizational Structures Should Be Designed from the Bottom Up.

At one of the seemingly endless mayoral candidate forums the moderator asked, “Districts or Networks?” The forum was sponsored by the supervisors union, the CSA, the audience, hundreds of principals. Each candidate answered “Districts,” except Christine Quinn, who turned to the audience and asked the same question, most of the audience raised their hands for “Districts;” recently 120 principals (less than 10% of the 1850 principals) signed a letter asking for the retention of networks, defending their autonomy.

There are arguments supporting each point of view.

The decentralization law (1970) established 32 community school districts, geographic entities attempting to capture neighborhoods. Each district was governed by an elected school board that acted quasi independently of the central board. Until 1997 the elected school boards hired principals and superintendents; a change in the law moved that authority to the chancellor. Voter turnout sharply decreased through the years and the elections, a proportional representation system, was controlled by the power blocs in the neighborhoods, the elected official’s political apparatus. In a few districts parents and communities were deeply engaged, too many were apathetic and a few deeply corrupt.

The mayoral control law ceded organizational control to the mayor; who, in 2003 announced the abolition of district superintendents and the creation of 10 mega-regions encapsulating the former 32 districts.

Senator Carl Kruger (now serving time at the expense of the federal authorities) sued the city arguing that the mayoral control law did not abolish the position of superintendent. The city retained the position of superintendent, in name only

Currently the 32 superintendents (plus the high school superintendents) rate principals, grant tenure and conduct occasional Quality Review visits; the superintendent’s staff is slim, a parent advocate and a secretary.

The 55 networks, with staff of about 15, half operations and half instructional support are evaluated by the principals. The networks, 25 schools each, are affinity groups of schools without any reference to geography. The network leaders have no formal supervisory authority; their role is support, although they do participate in the hiring/removal of principals.

As I understand the argument for networks:

Decisions impacting children should be made by the educators closest to children: principals and teachers. High functioning organizations, from Google to Facebook to Microsoft all allow teams wide latitude in solving problems. William Ouchi’s Making Schools Work (2003), applies modern management theories to schools.

Today, Professor Ouchi is one of the very few writers who can claim substantial influence in both education and business management. His 2003 book, Making Schools Work: A Revolutionary Plan to Get Your Children the Education They Need (Simon & Schuster), is based on in-depth study of the few large urban school systems that made consistent improvements in student test scores. The book identified seven elements common to good school systems: giving school principals local autonomy (as if the schools were business units), giving families a choice about which school they could send their children to, making schools accountable for student results, giving local schools control over their budgets, delegating authority as low as possible in the hierarchy, instilling a “burning focus on student achievement,” and setting up schools as “communities of learners,” where all the teachers figured out solutions together.

Jim Leibman, the former accountability tsar at the department argues that districts were part of the local political process – too many decisions were made that were inimical to the best interests of students.

Top down supervision stifles creativity and innovation, one size fits all, fits no one. Decades of all powerful superintendents created a compliance-driven school system that served the interests of the adults not the students.

Supporters of geographic districts argue:

Schools are part of communities and solutions to academic problems are rooted in problems facing communities. To have three schools in a single building all belonging to separate networks is ineffective. There is no evidence that the network structure has provided better outcomes, in fact, the evidence challenges the reason for networks. Although principals hire all teachers the teacher attrition rates have increased, especially in high needs schools. With so many new principals with limited experience to cast principals adrift is simply not fair to students. The current accountability system intervenes too late. Superintendents must visit and assess schools on an ongoing basis, not allowing schools to stumble and close schools.

In my view both points of view have merit.

There are schools that should continue to be in affinity, not geographic network, schools dealing solely with English language learners, transfer high schools, alternative programs, etc.

Newly appointed principals should work closely with a superintendent, the current system, mentors who makes an occasional visit, is too light a hand.

Do superintendents have the skills to work in collaboration with principals? In the past too many superintendents worked in a compliance-driven, top-down environment that discourages innovation and individual growth, a few were collaborative and worked closely with principals and teachers.

The question should not be districts or networks. The answer should be districts and networks, a model that serves the interests of all students, organizational structures that reward success as well as supporting schools.

A senior teacher blurted out to me at a meeting, “Why don’t they leave me alone, I know what I’m doing.” I thought to myself, “Do the kids know what you’re doing?” When principals and superintendents aver “I know what I’m doing,” do the teachers, parents and kids know what you’re doing?

Participation reduces resistance.

There is little evidence that a supervisory observation report alone changes teacher practice, the ongoing conversation between supervisor and teachers and among teachers changes practice.

The conversation between superintendent or network leader and principals changes practice: memoranda from central, the ukase, the requirements closely monitored only creates innovative ways to avoid implementing what a school leader feels will not improve his/her school.

Sergei Brin, the CEO at Google was asked how he improves the performance of his employees, He answered, “More parties.”