I asked my good friend Dr. Bill Hagerman, who is superintendent of the Nickerson-South Hutchison school district, if he would write a guest blog post for me. I asked him to write about what’s become clear to him as he returns to the superintendency. Here are his thoughts. -  Steve Wyckoff

The question posed to me, “as a returning superintendent what has become clear to me” has caused me to reflect on two things. What was different about my previous life as a Director for KSDE and my current life as a superintendent, and was I glad I made the change?

When I joined KSDE as director of State and Federal Programs and then Director of Innovation and Improvement, I was glad I made the move. Very little of my direct skills as a superintendent applied to the work that I did as a director at KSDE. However many of the skills as a leader, attitudes toward change and the need for change, did apply. So I worked daily to help change our organization at KSDE and to help provide visionary leadership to consider what we could do differently. The work at KSDE was very different, but the need to supervise people who knew much more about specific programs or specific procedures was no different than coming into a district as superintendent and needing to work with many people who know much more about the district. In both settings there were people who had information that I needed from them. I had to get them to want to help the organization by continuing to do their job and help me get up to speed.

Now as a returning superintendent, I am having my second first year as a superintendent. I have reconnected with many colleagues who are very willing to lend their wisdom and experience – not really a new phenomenon. Superintendents always are willing to help. I also realized how much pressure the latest version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – NCLB – is putting on schools and districts. When working at KSDE, even though we were at the very forefront of implementing the law, there was no way to be connected to the realities on a daily basis. Now I understand better, those realities such as such as the stress teachers feel who are responsible for a grade level or a content area that is assess; principals who have to decide what to do about serious discipline issues that could affect participation rates, graduation rates, and attendance rates; teachers in non-assessed areas who are worried about programs being cut due to “enrichment classes” being needed; and the list could go on and on.

Finally, what has become most clear to me is the fact that we need to change some things. We need to do a better job in our delivery methods – instructional strategies. While at KSDE, on February 13, 2009, the State Board of Education approved nine policy motions that, when fully implemented will ensure that all students will have challenging academic and technical standards integrated together to address today’s 21^st Century workplace. These policies will eventually change how we do almost everything. Related to this is also one of the biggest concerns I have had and continue to have; how to make sure what we teach and hopefully students learn is relevant, and not just nice to know. Much of what students learn, even though it may lay some sort of foundation, is learned in isolation and the technical application of what the student has learned is rarely evident to the student. So, students get bored, or think that what they are asked to learn is only needed to pass “the test.” In my opinion, if we are ever going to get significantly different results, we are going to have to engage our students in their own learning, or we will continue need more money to get the same or close to the same results.

For these reasons and many others, I am glad I made the change, and I continue to get up each day to work on this challenge. – Bill Hagerman

Of all the things I speak about, the slide I use that lists 10 behaviors that I identify as  “21st-century behaviors” is one of the most popular. I put this list together over the last many years from various sources. To be added to the list a behavior must be frequently mentioned in many sources. The 10 behaviors are:

1. Technological Fluency: The ability to use technology as a tool. To be completely comfortable using various forms of technology and use it with the ease that we would use paper and pencil.
2. Communication … Verbal proficiency: Of all the subjects we make students take, the one we make them take every year of their educational experience is English/Language arts. You would think with all that effort our students would be excellent communicators. Yet one of the most commonly heard concerns from the business community is the inability of our students to communicate either verbally, or in writing.
3. Collaboration … Leadership/Coordination/ Teamwork/Interpersonal Skills/Relationships/horizontal collaboration: The ability to work with others in all of its forms is critical today. Most of our kids will function in work environment that requires them to be a team player.
   
4. Solve Complex Problems: The world we live in and the problems that arise in that world are growing ever more complex. Often times requiring skills and knowledge from multiple disciplines, including use of technology. It is imperative that our graduates have the ability to work in this complex society and solve problems.
5. Gumption … Self-Direction and Reflection Skills: Gumption is not a word that we hear often but it describes clearly what employers today expect. We sometimes hear stick-to-itiveness  used as a synonym for gumption. The point is in the workplace today when confronted with difficulties individuals are expected to work through the issues, to be self-directed and to stick to a problem until it is solved.
   
6. Creativity and Innovative: Creativity is more often thought about in the extracurriculars but that’s not necessarily the kind of creativeness I’m referring to. While art and music are excellent preparation for the real world, the creativity I’m talking about is the ability to think differently than others and to come up with solutions that not only work but are innovative.
7. Analytical and  Critical Thinking Skills: Related to gumption and complex problem solving, individual today are expected to analyze the situation and think about it critically and solving problems.
8. Initiative, Work Ethic, Honesty, Integrity and Ambition: This collection of adjectives centers on the attributes that are desirable of all employees, and many times are referred to as character.
9. Adaptable … Versatilist: In a rapidly changing society it is imperative that individuals are able to adapt to change and modifications in the workplace, practices, and even knowledge. Versatilist is a term that was coined by Thomas Friedman in The World Is Flat to describe those individuals who are versatile and adaptable.
10. Inquisitiveness: Last but not least those individuals who are asking why and how, in other words always inquiring in order to improve their knowledge, or processes, or procedures.

In the lower right-hand corner of the slide that I use during presentations I place the following picture. And the question I ask is this, in the classroom pictured can these 10 critical behaviors be practiced on a regular basis? The typical answer, “no.”

For our schools to give students the opportunity to develop these behaviors it is essential that schools, especially high schools, engage in school improvement processes that involve learning by doing rather than memorization for standardized tests. Practicing these behaviors to make them habitual cannot be done sitting in a desk listening to a teacher in a traditional classroom.

Dan Pink would say that we need less algorithmic practice that we see in traditional classrooms, and more heuristic practice to prepare kids for the 21st century. Those heuristic behaviors, innovative and creative, can only be practiced in an environment that is more customized and individualized for each student. – Steve Wyckoff

Yes.

I fear it is. It’s slow, almost imperceptible, but things are either standing dead still, which is the same as getting worse, or getting worse. But for me the most depressing part is we aren’t even dealing with the  most important educational issues. The only discussion going on among mainstream educators is about money, the lack of money, and what cuts to make because of the lack of money. Don’t get me wrong money is necessary but it is not sufficient. Even before the financial crisis when we had more money the only discussion was “we need more money.”

In any discussion about improving, we almost always  focus on how we get better at what we’ve always done. So I do agree, if we are going to get better at what we’ve always done it will absolutely take more money, lots more money. The problem is, even if we reach our goal, our kids aren’t prepared for the world they’ll be living in.

For years I have believed that when conditions changed dramatically, for whatever reason, schools would finally make real systemic change to improve the educational experiences of all kids. Well, conditions have changed dramatically. We’ve never experienced the kind of financial issues we are facing today. Yet, there are no conversations of significance about changing the paradigm of public education.

Are we in a death spiral? I’m afraid so. I hope I’m proven to be wrong, we have a lot to lose.  But there is no law that says the United States of America has to be the most dominant country in the world. Our dominant position in the world is not guaranteed. 100 years ago the most dominant country in the world was Great Britain. As the saying went, the sun never set on the British Empire. The British Empire lost that lofty status. So can we. The sun can set on us also.- Steve Wyckoff

We’ve never seen the kind of financial cuts that are taking place in education today. Regardless of how you feel about school finance, and the ability of school districts to utilize their money wisely, the cuts that are being made today in the majority of school districts are painful at best. Decisions are starting to impact staffing decisions, including classroom teachers.

But every cloud has a silver lining. And often times the silver lining doesn’t show itself until much later. School districts are looking at ways to save money, cut costs, and yet at the same time improve the quality of the educational opportunities their students receive.

Down the road we’re going to look back at the decisions that are being made and many of them will have historical significance. Some because they devastated the district, and some districts will never recover from those decisions. But others will lead to creative and innovative solutions that will indeed increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the education our kids receive.

Our industry has been amazingly stagnant for the last century. We are long overdue to redesign major parts of our educational system; what we teach, how we teach it, how we organize to teach it, and how we assess what we have taught. Hopefully,  we will talk about, what the kids learned, how they learned it, where and how they were grouped to learn it, and how they demonstrated their understanding and use of what they learned.

Hopefully there will be enough examples of creative and innovative solutions that they will impact the educational system systemically. What would I like to see those systemic changes be?

I’d love to see all of our students emotionally (authentically) engaged in their learning experiences  on a regular basis. I’d love to see the content of what they are learning be the knowledge and skills that will make them more productive in their lives after school. I’d love to see them organized like we organize for work in the real world, in ways that allow them to collaborate with their peers and with experts from the fields of their choice. I’d love to see us scrap the entire standardized testing system and instead evaluate student learning based on the skills and knowledge they obtain which are aligned with their desired career  areas. I’d love to see teachers functioning as cold learners with the students, assuming a much more Socratic role. And most of all I love to see our students leave school loving to learn, and self-directed in their lives.

Is there hope? Only time will tell. Right now there is little reason for hope. Almost all of the discussions are centered on what to cut. On the other hand I was at the Topeka USD 501 Board of Education meeting last night and they are doing a great job of discussing the changes they can make to reduce expenses while at the same time focusing on improved opportunities for all of their students.

We can only hope that education and educators don’t blow it. – Steve Wyckoff

Why can’t schools change? It’s an interesting question. If you ask many educators they would say that schools have changed dramatically. I disagree. I think what goes on inside some classrooms has changed dramatically, but not schools. We do use more technology in classrooms; projectors, computers, smart boards, etc. But what we’re doing inside those walls is basically the same thing we’ve done for over 100 years. And sadly, with pretty much the same curriculum. Oh there have been some changes, but mostly tinkering inside the old format.

Some people believe that we need to change the rules so that schools look different. But then I can show you examples of schools that look dramatically different than traditional schools and are functioning within the same rules, regulations, and policies. So the rules must not be what is impeding our ability to change.

Other people think that a tradition that is over 100 years old is keeping us from changing. That we’ve done school the same way for so long that the belief system, and the culture around schools is too entrenched to change. These people often see parents as the biggest reason we can’t change. That parents demand that schools look like they did when they were students.

Still more people believe that the arcane rules for admission into college keep us from changing. That the emphasis on preparing every student to go to college forces schools to behave exactly as they always have. They believe that the Carnegie unit, Departmentalization, focus on standardized test, etc. are the fault of universities.

A cause that is never considered among educators is that perhaps we lack the leadership to make changes. School administrators are of the opinion that they are no longer managers, but rather leaders. I’m not sure I see any difference in their behaviors from when they were managers. I don’t think that continuous improvement of traditional processes constitutes leadership when there is a need for real systemic change.

There is also a school of thought that educators are risk-averse by nature, and that has a whole, are very, very reluctant to change. But when I talk to business people they feel the same way about themselves. Being resistant to change seems to be, to a large degree, human nature, and not reserved for educators.

And last, but certainly not least, there seems to be an non-articulated argument about the purpose of schools. There seems to be a “venn diagram” of purposes for schools. Prepare kids to go to college, prepare kids for the workplace, to give them a broad liberal education, to indoctrinate them for society, etc. The conflicting camps all want schools to change in a different way, therefore causing gridlock.

I think, in my humble opinion, that each of these is a characteristic of a centrally controlled bureaucracy. And there is no bigger centrally controlled bureaucracy than public education. Bureaucracies were designed to guarantee compliance, and stability in systems and processes. There is no system with more stable systems and processes nor more compliant than public education.

So what do I think the chances of real systemic change are? Zero. Nadda. None. In fact I think the bureaucracy has moved from the state level to the federal level with a corresponding increase in stability and compliance. I chuckle at the federal government’s insistence that they are encouraging real systemic change in schools. My observation is that they are causing exactly the opposite effect. Our schools have become test preparation Academy, whose sole purpose is to prepare kids to increase their scores on standardized test.

So what’s the solution? I believe the solution is “mission impossible.” The elimination of the educational bureaucracy at a time when our country is moving in the opposite direction seems hopeless. I keep looking for that ray of hope, but every time I see one, the results never seem to pan out. I don’t think there is a rule that America has to stay the best. Time will tell.- Steve Wyckoff

Erie school district has been blessed. By Mike Carson, Rose Frey, Ted Hill, and many many others who were involved in the transformation of their school. Erie high school is unique. What makes them unique is that their focus is on their students, and their student’s futures.

Erie high school has changed what the students learn, how the students learn, and how they organize the students to learn. In addition, while the students do take the state mandated standardized tests, their students are measured in much different ways than almost all other kids across the country.

The curriculum used in Erie high school is based on projects and problems designed by each individual student, based on their own interest, needs, and desires. And the results have been equally unique, students, and I mean all students, have far exceeded the normal expectations we have for high school kids. And, as former superintendent Mike Carson is fond of saying, “It isn’t just the head cheerleader and the quarterback that are doing great things.”

What Erie high school has figured out is how to not just expose their kids to curriculum with all the standards, but how to actually engage the students in meaningful work, whereby the kids learn the things that they want them to learn. Is it perfect? No. There have been, and continue to be, many issues. But unlike school improvement in traditional schools, they are getting better at the right things, rather than just getting better at what schools have always done.

I’ve observed for the last 40 years scores of creative an innovative projects. Some big, some small. The thing that they all had in common was a champion. The sad truth is, as soon as the champion moved on, and eventually they always do, the gravity of the status quo always pulled the project back into the mainstream and morphed it into a traditional program. There seems to be no way to make real systemic change in the educational system.

So I’m watching Erie high school with great interest. The superintendent has retired, as has the high school principal responsible for the project-based, problem-based learning curriculum. Other changes have been made with key personnel. My hope is that the model employed in Erie high school will spread across the state and the country.  The hope is that new champions have replaced the old champions.

I have low expectations. In spite of the fact that their kids are doing exceptional things and are truly well-prepared for the life they’re going to live; and in spite of the fact that it is actually cheaper to educate kids in this model; and in spite of the fact that we are in a financial crisis; I fear that it is impossible to actually make sustainable systemic change in public schools.

Time will tell.

I had the opportunity earlier this week to interview almost 20 educational leaders. I asked each of these individuals what the biggest issue is that they were facing has an educator in their role. Almost without exception they identified the financial crisis as the single most important issue. No surprise there.

But the follow-up question that I asked each of these individuals was, “What are you doing to address this issue?” Again, almost without exception, they described the cuts they were making. With a few of the individuals, because of their role in education, I asked them about innovative and creative solutions. I was very disappointed that almost all of the responses were the same, find ways to do what we always done with less money. It’s almost as if, as educators, we can’t see any solutions for educating children other than what we’ve done for more than 100 years.

But I did have three conversations that were very interesting to me. First of all I interviewed the interim commissioner, Dr. Diane DeBacker. Diane is an individual that I have the utmost respect for. In fact, I’m very perturbed that she isn’t a candidate for the commissioner’s position. She would be outstanding. But in our discussion I asked her if she was seeing creative and innovative solutions emerging as a result of the financial crisis. Her response was that she thinks schools are reverting back and becoming more traditional and more entrenched in traditional solutions.

The second conversation was with former Erie school district superintendent Mike Carson. Mike retired last year partially due to health considerations that were at least exacerbated by, if not caused by, the stress associated with making systemic change in the school system. For my money Erie high school is the best school in the state of Kansas. I have no idea what their standardized test scores are but what I did see when I visited Erie was every student authentically engaged in their work. Csikszentmihalyi would’ve said that they were hand “flow.”

If you’ve read my blog posts you know that I think standardized tests are the curse on education. Erie he doesn’t seem to focus on standardized test scores but rather on preparing students for their lives. What Erie high school has done is create a curriculum that is project based in problem-based. Where every student is engaged in learning centered on what is important to them and what they are interested in.

So when I asked Mike what the biggest issue in education was, he responded that our kids not being engaged in what they’re doing is the single biggest problem. And when I asked him about solutions he didn’t automatically say, “we need more money”, but he described a curriculum that met the needs of the students and was more relevant to their lives. What a breath of fresh air.

The third interview of interest was not with an educator, but rather with an architect, Allan Milbradt. Allan designed the new high school for the Erie school district. Allan told me that it was the best project he ever worked on because the school design was based on the curriculum that would be taught within the school, not simply modeled after every other school. Allan probably has more expertise in learning then many educational leaders.

So to answer my opening question, are we wasting a good crisis? I think the answer is yes. We have an opportunity to make lasting systemic change in the educational system. Changes that are sorely needed. Yet very few educational leaders are seeking really innovative and creative solutions.

Just a couple of years ago I started asking my audiences if schools were fine, they just needed tweaking; broken, they needed fixing; or obsolete, they need replacing. As you might imagine this provoked some lively conversation. When I first started asking the question the most common answer was, schools are fine they just need tweaking. But in the last couple of years the answers and the conversation have changed.

One of the real eye openers was when I was at Lawrence high school almost 2 years ago. Lawrence high school is almost literally in the shadow of the ivory tower. University of Kansas is just a few blocks away. So when I asked this question I thought that I might get a very emotional response supporting the way schools are today.

To my surprise, by a show of hands, about a third of the teachers in the room said that schools are fine they just need tweaking. About a third said they were broken and needs fixing and about a third said they were obsolete and needed replacing. I think I can generalize the groups that fit in to each of those answers.

Those who say schools are fine tend to be older, and teachers in core curriculum areas. Those who say schools are obsolete tend to be younger and not teaching in the core curriculum. The interesting group, those who say schools were broken, tends to be more of a mix in terms of age. But this tends to be the group who are more veteran teachers who just understand that something is not right with our educational system.

It really is impossible to stereotype the three groups. I often talk to very new teachers who think the system is absolutely perfect. In conversation with them their dream has always been to stand at the front of the room and teach kids. The current system suits them just fine. And some veteran teachers, especially in the core curriculum, think the system is perfect also.

The thing that is most disturbing to me, in the conversation with teachers who think the system is fine, is that they blame the students and parents for all the problems in the educational system. what they are really saying is if kids would come to us just like they did 25 years ago, and would be passive and compliant, schools would be wonderful. I always try to point out to these teachers that parents aren’t keeping their good kids at home and just sending us the bad ones. Kids, and society, are just different today, and we must change to accommodate those changes.

Of course all of these opinions are unburdened by data. But I can tell you there has been a dramatic shift over the last several years when I asked for a show of hands each of these categories. Where we lack consensus is what’s wrong with the system. And I’m always amazed how politically incorrect it is to even propose a discussion about the educational system as a system.

So you ask, what is my opinion? Well if you read my blog I think you know what my opinion is. I think schools are obsolete. Let me qualify that. I think that the younger our students are the better job we do with them. And the older our kids get the worst job we do. I’m preparing another blog post on this topic so more on that later.

It is my opinion, and again in a future blog post I’m going to go into this in more depth, that our system at the high school level is hopelessly obsolete. In three major areas we need an overhaul. First of all how we teach our kids is all wrong. If we truly want her kids to learn we must more specifically define what it means to learn. I think that it means that they not only retain the information long enough to take a test but long enough to use it long-term and unique situations. I think the only way we can accomplish that is by moving to a system where the kids learn by doing.

Secondly, I think that what we teach, especially in our core curriculum, is completely out of date. See my blog post on the curse of the core curriculum for more information. Our core curriculum is 115 years old and out of touch with our children’s needs in the 21st century.

And thirdly, how we organize to teach. We’ve had many discussions over the years about how important it is to have an integrated curriculum. The seven period day, carnegie units, and departmentalization have stood in the way of an integrated curriculum for decades. It’s about time to change them.

There are many more things to be said on this topic that can’t be said in this space. So stay tuned and in future blog posts I’ll expand on the ideas started here. In the meantime, leave me a comment. I’d love to know what you’re thinking.