School Board Talk-5 Books for School Board Members

This year, as I leave the Board of Education, I've been thinking about what might help school board members, and candidates fulfill their public trust.    So, in this fifth post on  School Board Talk, I'm listing five of my favorites education books.   Serving on a school board effectively is hard work.   Its not a job for people who think they can simply apply what they've learned from pundits and what they learned in their own educational career. 

You can't meet your full potential as a school board member unless you study public education deeply.   Read before you run; read new books constantly.  Share what you learn and for God's sake use it.   Here are some of my favorites. If you have your own favorites, please share them.

Measuring Up, Daniel Koretz  This Harvard professor of educational statistics examines the misuse of educational statistics.  Koretz is a proponent of proper use of standardized testing, but an eloquent advocate against the common misuse of those statistics.   Koretz's book derives from his statistics course for graduate students in the school of education.  It is literate, thoughtful, and informative.   Perhaps the best work on educational statistics.

In Visible Learning, Hattie reports the results of years of study of compilations of education research.   This book was recommended to our board by our then new superintendent Jett.  Hattie is a recommended read for school board members, because he exposes us to the need for skepticism and caution in evaluating both new approaches and old to education reform. 

Hattie points out that advocates for change often fail to compare the "effect size" of their proposed reform to the educational equivalent of the placebo.   When exposed to ordinary teachers using ordinary curriculum students make average advances.   If the median average increase in mathematics in a third grade class is  one year's growth, then we cannot say that a new reform math curriculum that advances median students by one year is all that successful.   If we are going to expend the financial and organizational costs that accompany reform, we ought to be utilizing techniques that increase student performance by far more than that.  

He writes, "one of the fascinating discoveries throughout my research for this book is discovering that many of the most debated issues are the ones with the least effects."  It is difficult for school boards and their leadership to discern whether reforms are paying dividends.   How do we measure progress?  What questions do we ask when our administration presents pictures of kids learning and tells us that the pictures represent the good work that is occurring in our schools?

Doubling Student Performance  and Finding the Resources to Do It. (Odden) Odden is a Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA), Director of Strategic Management of Human Capital, and codirector of the Consortium for Policy Research in Education in the Wisconsin Center for Education Research. Odden and his research team have studied a number of schools and districts from around the country that have "doubled student performance" and closed the achievement gap on state tests over the past five to seven years. Teams of successful and performance-focused educational leaders focused on key strategies which have helped them to dramatically improve student learning.

 

In Visible Learning, Hattie reports the results of years of study of compilations of education research.   This book was recommended to our board by our then new superintendent Jett.  Hattie is a recommended read for school board members, because exposes us to the need for skepticism and caution in evaluating both new approaches and old to education reform.   Hattie points out that advocates for change often fail to compare the "effect size" of their proposed reform to the educational equivalent of the placebo.   Exposed to ordinary teaching using ordinary curriculum make advances on the average.   If the median average increase in mathematics in a third grade class is one year, then we cannot say that a new reform math curriculum that advances median students by one year is all that successful.   If we are going to expend the financial and organizational costs that accompany reform, we ought to be utilizing techniques that increase student performance by far more than that.   He writes, "one of the fascinating discoveries throughout my research for this book is discovering that many of the most debated issues are the ones with the least effects."   

School boards tend to be super gullible when it comes to believing that their schools are making great progress.   How do we measure progress?  What questions do we ask when our administration presents pictures of kids learning and tells us that the pictures represent the good work that is occurring in our schools.  

Organizing Schools for Improvement  Byrk and others.   "This book by current and former researchers from the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) provides a detailed analysis of why students in 100 public elementary schools in Chicago were able to improve substantially in reading and math over a seven year period and students in another 100 schools were not. Using massive longitudinal evidence, the study yields a comprehensive set of school practices and school and community conditions that promote improvement, noting that the absence of these spells stagnation."

In his work on Effective Supervision  Marzano argues that effective teaching must be developed over ten years or more in an environment that supports professional development and excellence. He contends that many teachers are not realizing their full potential, because they are developing teaching skills on a hit-and-miss basis, without the effective support of their school, their peers and their supervisors.  Effective teaching, he argues, requires continuous, deliberate efforts by the entire learning community.    He explores five categories of efforts to develop teachers:

     (1) a well-articulated knowledge base for teaching,

    (2) focused feedback and practice,

    (3) opportunities to observe and discuss expertise,

    (4) clear criteria and a plan for success, and

    (5) recognition of expertise

Each of these five really depend, in large part, on the way in which the school and school system support effective teaching.  It is possible, then, that we are spending way too much time arguing about how to get rid of teachers, and not near enough time discussing how to reform schools and school systems so that they develop the good teachers that we need?

   It's Being Done, Academic Success in Unexpected Schools. and How it's Being Done. are part of Karen Chenoweth's education trilogy.  Her books constitute three of the best books for school board members. A former education reporter for the Washingon Post, Chenoweth embarked on a multi year research project visiting schools that have significantly outperformed their demographics.  With the Education Trust, Chenoweth identified a number of traditional public schools across the country that display educational statistics significantly superior to other similar schools.   She then studied these schools on location, interviewing teachers, principals, and community members.  Her books distill the strategy adopted by those special leaders and give school board members a reason to believe that "It's Being Done." 

See also:   

School Board Talk-4 Better Dialog Sessions with the Community

For several days, I've been writing posts about how school boards listen to the community at school board meetings.   I've been suggesting that to a great extent, many school boards aren't using community input time to the best advantage.   I'm sure that  there are colleagues on my own board and others will disagree.   But the thrust of my argument is that mostly school boards devote precious time to random community input where the comments focus on topics selected randomly by who shows up, and from persons whose comment are not necessarily representative of the people who know the most about the presentation topic. 

Operational Comments Belong Elsewhere.  Supposing someone shows up, randomly, to express a concern about early childhood education.  Maybe the person has a complaint about the management of a particular facility in the district, or about the transportation provided to children.   That's all well and good, but I maintain that this person might well have been more effective if she showed up to discuss this with the administrator most closely responsible for the operational problem she is complaining about. Who could we invite who could challenge the board and district leadership to raise its standards in early childhood education? What would a dialog with the board look like if the board provided a robust forum on the topic of truly outstanding early childhood educatoni?

School Boards Function at an Accountability Level.  I maintain, School Boards responsibility for early childhood education should be at a much higher level than would be stimulated by an average citizen showing up at a board meeting.  By way of example, many school districts self evaluate their early childhood education programs using the TS Gold instrument and often the self evaluation reports, falsely, that the district's program is turning out graduates at amazingly high levels.   You know, everybody is above average kind of material.  

The TS Gold instrument, it turns out, is not what its cracked up to be, or so I assert.   But most school boards, upon being told that the TS Gold says that their programs are performing at a very high level, just nod their heads and give a few speeches of congratulation.  Its going to take highly experienced outside people to challenge us to think more deeply.  In fact, its pretty much standard to see early childhood education as such a good thing, that anyone who asks hard questions about whether its doing a good job is likely to be ostracized. 

Seldom do we board members dive in and engage in deep probing questions:  What does the TS Gold actually test for?   If our students are doing so well, according to the TS Gold when they leave pre school, why are they performing way below proficient in second grade?  I guarantee you, that no  random public commenter is going to step forward and add that kind of value.

Public Hearings for Community Experts.   Suppose instead of taking random community comment from persons on topics for which they have no particular qualification, school boards periodically scheduled targeted panel workshop discussions from community advocates and experts.  I don't mean the local community organizer, whith apologies to community organizers.   I mean people with professional active vocations who have something to offer in this area:  (e.g. the state of early childhood education), who can challenge the board with real facts, real policy issues, and who aren't internal people merely presenting a defense of how great they are.

Many years ago, our board held such a forum at a workshop.   We placed a selected group of people working in the early childhood field,  each with genuine expertise and information on the state of early childhood education in our community.  I still remember that session as one of the best school board meetings  that we ever had.   My one regret is that I could not convince fellow board members to schedule more of these sessions. 

Connecting Forums to the Board's Mission
If you are on a  board of education, or have influence on a board of education, I urge you to think more deeply about the fundamental purpose of school boards, and how presentations at school boards might elevate, educate, stimulate and transform, instead of deliver random complaints.We should be inviting people who have given their topic a lot of thought; who can add value and make positive suggestions.  For example,

• If the district is struggling with how to transform elementary education in ways that close the achievement gap, maybe it would be productive to invite a panel of successful charter school leaders and ask them to discuss what is working with their students. 
• If the district is interested in how it is meeting the needs of talented students from all backgrounds, maybe it would be productive to invite a panel of students to describe their experience in district schools. 
• If the district is planning a major revision in the reading curriculum, might it be helpful to invite outside reading experts to discuss the issues the district is confronting and the major issues that school districts are confronting and some frank dialog from community experts on possible solutions.  

As a school board member, I would express my emphatic belief that hearing from community experts in these or other areas, in an open atmosphere of frank dialog, would be far more meaningful that most of the community input, and indeed much of the district staff only presentations that sometimes appear on our agendas. Several years ago, our board invited Joe Nathan and Samuel Yigzaw to present on some of their work in charter schools serving immigrant students and others.  They challenged us to raise our vision of what our students can accomplish, and it certainly had a long term impact on the way that I thought about our possibilities. 

School Board Talk-3 Public Input Policies

I've been trying to start a  introspective dialog here on this blog on how school boards work, and how school board's should work.  My goal is to share nearly 15 years of board experience and to provide a resource where others who really care about the proper function of school boards might do some deep thinking on board governance.  This is the second post on the topic of public comments at school board meetings. Today's post provides some examples of actual board policies on public comment.   Many of these policies liberally allow citizens to interject themselves into a school board meeting, and my view on these policies is that they are a misapplication of resources, and inconsistent with the school board's primary functions.

In another post, I want to talk about some actual studies on effective school boards.  I'm going to suggest that a great deal of board activity diverges from what is desperately needed in public education today: a school board that spends most of its efforts on accountability, on strategic policy guidance, and on stimulating educational excellence.   There are so many opportunities to evade this important goal, and some school administrators would much rather have boards waste their time on listening to mindless pointless comments, than actually trying to focus on whether their district is measuring up.    When we think about school governance, we ought to be thinking about how a board of education adds value, and not merely go through the motions of what we think a school board is supposed to do. 

Suppose at public comment the first citizen speaks for three minutes on why we should have less testing in our public schools.  Suppose the second citizen, and three others, come to complain about the format of graduation.  Suppose then another citizen comes to urge that the district hire more teachers of color,  and then finally, two student gymnast urge the board to put more money into the gymnastics program in next year's budget. And so on.  Is this a wise use of time, and how does it add value to the district's ultimate success?

For each of these example comments, after the comment is presented, the chair is likely to say, in a perfunctory  manner, thank you for your comment, we don't discuss public comments at this meeting, someone from the superintendent's office will get back to you.   How then has the time been well used:   Wouldn't it have been more effective for the citizen upset with testing to send an email to the curriculum director, or to the full board, or to stop by the principals office?  Why isn't there an administrative system for the school leadership, or the activities leadership,  to hear concerns from students about activities? 

Nonetheless, school boards governing very large school districts often provide liberal opportunities for what they call "the public" to speak.  The Minneapolis School Board conducts public comment from 5:30 to 6:15 once per month.  Comments may address any topic, including issues pending before the board that evening.  The rules limit five persons on any given topic, but at times, the media reports suggest that a larger group will attend en masse and convince the board to diverge from standard procedure. At the budget meeting this year, 31 delegations were received.  Thirty one persons from a city with a population of 413,000, and a school district serving 30,000 students.  If the Minneapolis school board upset its budget because 31 speakers with a group of angry sign holding citizens represented the families of 30,000 students, is that really good governance.

The Minneapolis rules distinguish between comments and "delegations."  A delegation is a comment delivered on an agenda topic that is to be discussed at that evening's meeting.   Minneapolis's rules require persons wishing to speak during the comment period to register for a comment or for a delegation.   In addition, board policy contains a discretionary delegation process upon request during the meeting.

The Minnesota School Board's Association created two really confusing model board policies, standard policy 206 and 207.   The two policies taken together create a rather poorly crafted set of rules that desperately need a complete rewrite.   The policies seem to encourage interruptions to interject comments at the drop of a hat: whatever could that be for? 

If your school district has adopted model policies 206 and 207, both of which seem to address public comments, you may wonder why two policies. And, if you read policy 206, you will be puzzled, I bet, at the insertion of what appears to be extraneous material on data privacy sitting right there in the middle of a public hearing and complaint policy.

My basic concern here is that taking random public comment in a large school district with ten thousand students or more, and using those comments to somehow guide governance is simply foolish.   I would argue that what the board is doing, really, is holding public comment, as a way of pretending that it is providing an effective forum for public comment, to fend of criticism. 

The Des Moines school district liberally allows public comment on items that are pending before the board.   As an experiment, if you disagree with my position on the benefit of public comment, you can actually watch an example (click the link) of what the Des Moines board hears at these sessions.

The Omaha school board has the following liberal public comment policy:

Members  of   the  public  will  be  permitted  to  speak  at  Board  meetings  at  which  a  public comment  is on the Agenda, and may speak during the time at which the public comment agenda  item  is  being  addressed .  Members  of  the  public  may  also  speak  when  invited  to make a presentation or when recognized by the chair.  The Board is not required to allow members  of  the  public  to  speak  at  each  meeting.  However,  the  Board  will not forbid public participation at all meetings. 

What is the matter with the administration of the Des Moines school district that people need to come to the board to get their views heard? 

In most of our school districts, our teaching of social studies, mathematics, and for many students reading, is broken.   Our English Language Learners aren't learning English fast enough.   We aren't making adequate progress on closing the achievement gap.    Why are we wasting our time listening to public comments about issues that are mostly operational, and mostly don't go to the heart of what we need to do to transform public education. 

If you disagree, drop me a line.   More to come.

School Board Talk-2 Hearing from the Public

This is a second in a series written to provide a better understanding of how school boards function, and to suggest some principles of what might make them function better.   I'm trying to build on nearly 15 years experience as an elected school board member of the St. Cloud District.   My District spans 250 square miles and serves a diverse population of about 10,000 students. During the time that I lived in this community, since 1978, our district has experience a wide range of governance styles, and of management styles.   Today's post is about hearing from the public.  It may take me two posts, at least,  to cover the topic.

Some citizens expect school boards to take public comment on a broad range of topics, and to do so almost on demand.  Often they derive this idea from their experience with small city government.  Cities hold numerous hearings, because hearings are required by law.  Many of the hearings held by cities involve zoning decisions that impact property rights of the applicant, and from nearby residents effected by the proposal.   Moreover, city councils frequently pass ordinances or regulatory resolutions which require public hearings and findings. 

In contrast, most of a school board's work is akin to that of a corporate board approving major management decisions brought forward by management.  .Almost none of the board's decisions require a hearing by law.   That's because the legislature expects boards to delegate major decisions to management, and to use board decision making to maintain a level of business like accountability.    

The best, most effective school boards expect their operational leadership to bring major decisions to the board only after engaging in a consultative process with stakeholders, staff, citizens, students, and district leadership.   When the board of directors of a business corporation approve major decisions proposed by management, they don't hold a public hearing for their stockholders to take comments on whether the decision is prudent.    The corporate board expects that management has engaged in due diligence, and conducted appropriate consultation.  Similarly, a school board expects that district management will engage in careful due diligence before a decision is brought to the board for approval.   The superintendent defends his recommendation by showing how the decision supports the strategic plan, and by confirming that controversial decisions have already been vetted through a consultative inclusive process.

This question:  "where should public consultation occur?", is central to school governance philosophy.   When a school superintendent changes curriculum, changes graduation requirements, increases or decreases class size, implements budget cuts by distributing those cuts across the district, where should input occur?   Effective boards expect that the input should occur before the superintendent makes the recommendation to the board for approval.   When difficult budget cuts occur, those proposed cuts need to be vetted through an inclusive process, and effective boards expect that the superintendent will conduct an effective inclusive process, before making recommendations to the board. 

When the school board creates an expectation that citizens can come to the board meeting at the last minute and supplant the superintendent's inclusive process, why then stakeholders are likely to say, why bother going to the meeting at the school to discuss changes, I'll just wait until the final school board meeting, that's where the real decision will be made.  

School boards differ from corporate boards, of course.  They are accountable to the public through the election process.  However, whatever issue that comes before a school board, effective school boards expect their management to engage in appropriate consultation in advance of the meeting where the recommendation is delivered.   Major decisions that come before the Board, brought by the superintendent, should be vetted through a formal inclusive decision making process.  It is the school superintendent's job to conduct a consultative process that is equivalent to a public hearing.    

There are other problems with collecting public input informally in the middle of a public meeting.   A well organized consultative process provides equal access to all sides of an issue and all regions of the district and to parents with power and parents who are less powerful.   A board hearing by its very nature abbreviates the amount of input, and often one side organizes a group presentation, whereas others, unaware of the planned input, don't have reason to attend. 

The result is that the hearing often isn't really a hearing, but a board ambush by a small segment of the impacted stakeholders.   That's why it is so important that school boards expect that the superintendent and his leadership team conduct effective inclusive deliberative decision making processes.  In most cases, the Board's due diligence should be focusing not on the few people who show up to complain, but rather on whether the Superintendent and his team have engaged in appropriate stakeholder consultation, and whether the superintendent is accurately reporting the results of that consultation.

In my next post on this topic, I'm going to describe some board policies on public input and level some critiques on some of those policies. 
   

School Board Talk-Build on the Good Change your District is Ready to Make

This year, I was up for election to the school board for a fifth term, and after almost fourteen years of school board service, I decided not to run.  I'm proud to say that our district attracted an outstanding field of candidates: among them two former Minnesota legislators and two highly respected formerly retired board members returning for another run.  Its a relief to know that the voters have a chance to keep the school board strong.

I've decided to start a series  of posts with ideas on the role of school board members.  Urban public schools face tremendous challenges.   The legislative framework provided to school districts is deeply dysfunctional.   Finding and keeping outstanding leadership requires teamwork, political savvy, and a bit of just plain luck.   The state systemically underfunds school districts, and there are systemic structural issues that push even the most resilient school boards to allocate more money than they have to compensation, and less to needed programs and reforms.  

But good school board governance can make a huge difference, and here during the last six months of my service,  I'm going to take a crack at sharing some thoughts for aspiring school board members on how to make a difference as a school board member, while drawing as well on some of the mistakes that I would do over again if I could. 

My first lesson for any new or experienced board member is to never lose sight of your responsibility to be a part of an accountability team that consistently seeks to aspire to do better as a school district.   It's not your job as a board member to try to defend the status quo.  Board service is not about giving speeches about how great your school district is, and how your perceived shortcomings are beyond your control. That can make you really popular: telling people in the system how great we are all.   But we desperately need to improve public education, and if you are not willing to be a part of that improvement, then why the heck are you running for school board in the first place.  In my future posts, I'm going to discuss some ways that school board members, working as part of a governance team can help their district become a true continuous progress organization. 

When you take board training, one of the first things you get taught is that "you are just one board member," and that is true. You can't order anyone to do anything, and if you could, you'd probably be ordering people to do the wrong things at the wrong time.  Most public school districts in the United States are doing a dreadful job of teaching elementary students mathematics, for example.  If you don't know that, you have some reading to do, because part of being a great school board member is knowing something about your product:  the field of education.  But no matter how much you know, and no matter how hard you try, a school board is not going to fix elementary school mathematics, not even if all seven board members order it to happen.  

 Across the country, and certainly here in Minnesota, most school districts are completely neglecting students with dyslexia, the most common specific learning disability, by far.   As a board member, you should know that, because it is one of the central keys to attacking the reading proficiency gap that plagues our schools. But here again, you would most certainly find that as a school board member strongly committed to solving the dyslexia problem, there are deeply embedded systemic barriers to making the needed reform.   If you are coming to the school board because you want to improve education for young people, good for you:  that is the right reason.   But it takes more than commitment and persistence, and my hope is to provide some posts that may be of assistance in your quest. 

So here is my first pointer:   Identify the good change that your school district is ready to make; discover the leaders who are ready to make that change, and give that change a boost.    If you are a lover of mathematics, and you came to the school board because your kids had a terrible math experience at their school, you are not going to "fix" math, if your school leadership isn't ready to go after math. Public schools are being asked to make dozens of changes.  If reading needs reform, the transformation will take all hands on deck:  professional development; leadership; buy in from principals and the curriculum people; and several years of persistent hard work and self correction.   If the board were to demand changes in mathematics at the same time --- and I don't advise ever demanding that kind of change in that way --- all you will get is two incompetently executed reforms, and a lot of angry overloaded teachers.  

The time to get on board math reform is when the superintendent or the appropriate teaching and learning exec says, "we need to make some changes in math,  will you support the resources that we need to make those changes."   A school board member can be extraordinarily effective, when your leadership tells you that they are ready to make good reform.  So identify the good change that your school district is ready to make and get behind it.

Now if a properly trained school board member is reading this, I might hear this:  why are you even talking about math reform; that's not your job; that's the exclusive realm of the educational experts you hire to make operational decisions.   I disagree, but let's save that argument for another day.   I'm going to suggest that the law expects school boards to be an important partner in achieving the highest possible academic standards.   If you are just coming to school board meetings to cheer for the home team, why are you there.  Right now, I'll just leave with the suggestion:   "Build on and support the Good Change your district is ready to make."