Of all the workshops I have attended and all the workshops I have presented on change management, the truth is it does not really matter until it matters. In other words, until you live through significant change in your career, family or personal life you may not really understand change.

A significant book that my wife gave me on Valentine's Day in 2007 was Change or Die by Alan Deutschman. Alan talks about heart by pass patients and studies that have been completed by many hospitals and research clinics. Heart by pass patients who know they must change the stress in the life, exercise more, and change eating habits do typically make change for a few months, however, after two years less than 1 out of 9 by pass patients have continued with changes in their stress, exercise or eating habits. If we cannot get heart by pass patients to change when they know that they will die if they do not, then how can we possibly expect principals or teachers to create the changes we need in public education to help their "patients" succeed in learning.

Well, change has recently come to my professional life and in a big way. Starting August 5, I will assume the role of Commissioner of Education for Kentucky. I can't help but laugh at myself a little. I can remember as a teacher thinking I should become a school administrator because surely anyone could do better. Then as principal I said that I should become a superintendent because surely anyone could do better.Then I said surely a state system could be run better and now.... In every case, I found that you really do not understand a situation and the change that is needed until it really matters. Until you are really in the position, you have no real idea of the challenges and barriers that every level of education faces. In other words don't judge someone or the job they do until you have walked in their shoes.

My future postings will probably relate the state level leadership experiences. Kentucky is in a very exciting position with regard to education reform. Kentucky led the nation in reform during the '90's and during the last legislative session a major education reform law was passed. Couple that with Race to the Top, the next few years will be very exciting in Kentucky and I look forward to sharing some of the story with readers.

Terry Holliday

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I caught Secretary Duncan on NPR this week talking about teacher evaluations and other key issues surrounding education reform. Secretary Duncan talked about several studies that were recently featured in Education Week. The studies major findings that teacher evaluations reflect a Lake Wobegon effect. Almost 99% of teacher evaluations studied reflect teachers were at or above average. In other words, all of the teachers being evaluated are meeting or exceeding standards. Sec. Duncan's question rings true - if all of our teachers are meeting or exceeding standards then there is little to no variation in teacher distribution. Another more distrubing question is this - if all of our teachers are meeting or exceeding standards, then why are many students failing or dropping out of school.

About the same time Sec. Duncan was talking about teacher evaluations and the need to improve evaluations, I was having end of year reviews with principals in our system. Our school system deployed new teacher and principal evaluation instruments this year. During the end of year reviews, the conversation focused on performance of the school in the areas of student learning and how professional development impacted student learning. Also, I asked a great deal about how the principals used the teacher evaluation instrument to analyze the variability in student learning among and between teachers at the same grade level and subject. What I discovered was our principals needed more coaching and support to have these conversations with teachers.

Also, last week I was working with leaders from several different states and discovered that some states do not allow the connection of student learning data with teacher evaluation data. While NC does not prohibit this use, it is certainly only one part of a comprehensive teacher evaluation instrument.

While Sec. Duncan seemed to focus on the need to evaluate teachers and find out those who are low performing, I would prefer we focus on an improvement instrument for teachers and principals, By connecting the key instructional strategies that impact student learning and then providing focused professional development, coaching and support, I believe that 95% or more of our teachers can be successful. Why 95%? That is the core philosophy of a systems based approach. In most cases, it is not the people that are the problem. It is not the people that are creating the variation in a process. It is the system and the process itself. For our system, we will focus on the process of teacher evaluation and provide principals with the coaching and support needed to continue to improve student learning outcomes. NC has focused standards for school boards, superintendents, principals and teachers that are systems based and focus on continuous improvement.

Terry Holliday
Superintendent - Iredell Statesville Schools
2008 Baldrige National Quality Award Recipient

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From the McKinsey Consulting Company comes another report (last month I wrote about What World's Best School Systems Do). This report is entitled "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools." This report utilizes the Program for International Student Assessment results. This test measures student achievement at age 15 in math and science. We rank 25th in math and 24th in science among 30 nations participating.

A couple of quotes from the study should get you interested in reviewing the work (just Google McKinsey Consulting and then search for the report on the social section of the web page).

"Avoidable shortfalls in academic achievement impose heavy and often tragic consequences, via lower earning, poorer health, and higher rates of incarceration."

"If the United States had in recent years closed the gap between its educational achievement levels and those of better-performing nations such as Finland and Korea, GDP in 2008 could have been between $1.3 trillion to $2.3 trillion higher."

"These educational gaps impose on the United States the economic equivalent of a permanent national recession."

"The wide variation in performance among schools serving similar students suggest that these gaps can be closed. Race and poverty are not destiny."

Thomas Friedman in a nationally syndicated column (April 23) reported that according to the study, our fourth graders do well in international comparisons. However, our high school kids really lag. Which means, "the longer our children are in school; the worse they perform compared to their international peers."

"There are millions of kids who are in modern suburban schools who don't realize how far behind they are. They are being prepared for $12 an hour jobs - not $40 or $50 an hour jobs," Matt Miller (author of study)

Bottom line for educators should be that we review the Pygmalion Effect. If we believe children can learn to high levels regardless of race and poverty, then they will. If we do not believe they can, then they will not!!!! Believe in public education. Believe in teachers. Believe in educational leaders and let's get the job done. Our very future depends on our ability to raise the levels of learning of all children.

Terry Holliday
Superintendent
Iredell-Statesville Schools

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A great passage from The Prince by Machiavelli reminded me how difficult our work is with the current economy and demands for improved performance of public school systems.

"It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in introducing a new order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents - who have the laws on their side - and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them."

Recently, I attended a meeting near Los Angeles and read several articles about the impact of budget cuts on teacher positions in LA Unified. Also, on the east coast, Charlotte Mecklenberg is dealing with the same issues. In both papers on both coasts, the debate is heating up about teacher layoffs. Should school systems layoff teachers based on contracts which always favor those with tenure and longevity in a school system or should school systems layoff teachers who are not producing value as measured by increases in student learning? What has enabled this debate to take place is the advance of sophisticated software systems that are able to measure value add for individual classrooms. Also, the actual impact of the economic conditions we find ourselves in has led to the conversation in the first place. Finally, from the federal level we have the President basically saying that we should not tolerate poor performance by teachers.

Another part of the debate is class size and the perceived impact on student learning. While most research does not show that lowering class size has a significant impact on improving student learning, politicians, parents, and teachers will never give this sacred cow up. Even though the research is clear that the quality of instruction plays a larger role in impacting student learning than lower class size, we will not see politicians or school superintendents raise class size!!!

What an interesting time to be in education and to be a leader. Truly, the critical skill for leaders in education is change management!!! The question for those who develop leaders is this - are we developing the skills needed in change management in the preparation and coaching programs that help leaders be successful?

Terry Holliday

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If you have not read the McKinsey report - How the world's best performing school systems come out on top - you need to download and read it!!!! What you will find is a lot of influence from Michael Fullan and other international education thinkers.

Bottom line - school outcomes will be no better than the quality of your teachers.The evidence on this has come from Boston, Dallas, Tennessee, Marzano's research, Sanders research, and from all OECD countries. Two consecutive years with a low quality teacher and it is almost impossible for children to recover.

What are the three things that the world's best school systems do?

1 - improve the quality of teachers entering schools of education
2 - improve the quality of instruction
3 - ensure that every child has access to high quality instruction

As always, the devil is in the details of how nations do these three things. While somewhat different in approaches, the top performing countries limit the number of applicants who can enter schools of ed, they recruit from the top 10% of high school graduation classes, and they guarantee a good starting salary.

For improving instruction, the strategies usually include more application based training (internships) during the 5th year of a degree program, instructional coaches in schools, just-in-time professional development on high yield instructional strategies, and learning from peer teachers.

For ensuring access to high quality instruction, the strategies usually center around strong standards, formative assessments, strong instructional leaders, interventions at school, teacher and student levels, and strong accountability systems with tons of feedback loops.

Everything sounds familiar and we in the US know how to do all of these things. Why don't we have more deployment of these strategies? The KNOWING and DOING gap.

Terry Holliday

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As a recipient of the 2008 Malcomb Baldrige National Quality Award, there comes a responsibility to be an ambassador for the Baldrige criteria. This means a number of speaking engagements and quite a bit of time in the air and waiting on flights. During this time, I like to read and keep up with educational research. A book I started on a recent flight was Tom Friedman’s  Hot, Flat and Crowded. Friedman is one of my favorite writers. I do not always agree with his positions, however, I enjoy reading his editorials in the New York Times and I enjoy reading his books.

Friedman’s latest book starts with a powerful chapter that reflects how America has potentially lost its way since 9/11. Friedman documents three trends that are prevalent in our country;

1) post 9/11 isolation and fear;

2) “dumb as we wanna be” generation that he compares to a sub-prime nation that operates on a nothing down and no interest for 2 years mentality, and a nation that is more concerned about red state vs. blue state than collaboration to solve our problems; and,

3) A positive trend of nation building at home.

Friedman’s positive trend of nation building documents the vitality of the newest generation of young adults in America. I was connected to his comparisons in that I have two children that belong to this new generation. While the children are dramatically different, I see the hope and inspiration in their eyes. During the recent Presidential election, I have never seen the excitement and passion in such young voters. Friedman also sees this hope and inspiration. He says they want our country to matter again. They want to be summoned to come forth and do great things. They want to do “nation building” in our country to restore and revitalize something they cherish but feel has been degraded.

As an educator and as an American, I worry that we are leaving our children a huge mess that will need to be cleaned up. I feel as educators, we have gone through a sub-prime period. We have had a period where we were spending and borrowing our future for bells and whistles rather than maintaining a focus on the fundamentals of hard work and rigorous challenge of higher order thinking and problem solving.

Friedman says the winds changed on 9/11 and while the initial response of addressing safety was the right call, we have gone too far in building walls and blocking America’s position of leadership and hope in the world. Friedman cites the Chinese proverb - when the wind changes direction some build walls to block the wind and others build windmills to harness the energy of the wind.

In education, I believe we have built walls with No Child Left Behind. We have reacted to a period of wealth and prosperity where student achievement did not grow by building walls that have as their foundation standardized testing and a lack of innovation and creativity. However, I agree with Friedman that we certainly have a positive trend of nation building in America. I see hope for building windmills to harness the energy of a new generation of leaders. In education, these windmills are reflected by programs such as Teach for America and New Leaders for New Schools. In North Carolina, we are seeing innovations in teacher and principal standards and training programs. In our school system we are seeing innovations everyday as teachers reflect on learning with students through the use of a Plan Do Study Act cycle. As I visit schools in our school system, I am seeing energy and hope that has not always been there.

Whether the new energy and hope are connected to a new leader at the national level or not, I know that America has always been able to reinvent itself. American education has always been able to reinvent itself. In times of greatest challenge, leaders emerge to help America reinvent itself. My challenge to each of you as school leaders is to build windmills rather than walls. Instill the hope in yourself and then spread that hope to the children and adults you come into contact with every day. Ignite the passion for learning within yourself and I am certain that you will find that passion for learning spreading to all those with whom you contact.

Terry Holliday

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[cross-posted at the old LeaderTalk blog (including comments)]

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