Schooling by Design

Chapter 7: What Is the Job of an Academic Leader?

“Our goal is to be the #1 comprehensive high school in the state of Pennsylvania.”

If you are going to “lead” people anywhere, you must have a specific and worthy

destination in mind…

Mission

Vision

We need far more “leadership” and less “management” ….if

schools are to honor their obligations and close the huge gap

between vision and reality.

You said what?

Job 1: Responsibilities Related to Mission and Learning Principles

• Academic leaders have a primary responsibility to– Reinvigorate the Mission Statement– Make it central to decision making– Ensure staff continually explore it &– It’s meaning and implications

How will these envisioned competencies and accomplishments be explicitly

addressed within the curriculum?

How will they be assessed throughout the grades?

What observable indicators in classrooms will show that these

desired outcomes are receiving proper attention?

The long-term obligation of academic leaders is to ensure that staff members operate as professionals…

…basing decisions on defensible criteria and principles closely tied to best practice in their respective curricular areas.

Job 2: Responsibilities Related to Curriculum

• Directing the Analysis and “Unpacking” of Standards– Are your academic standards

“checked off” OR

– Are your academic standards “unpacked”

Unpacking Standards?

• Identifying the Big Ideas worth understanding

• Identifying the

Essential Questions needed

for student inquiry into those ideas

Facilitating Curriculum Reviews and Troubleshooting

• Non instructional roles for teachers…– “critical friend” peer reviews of curriculum units– Course maps– Cornerstone assessments– Companion rubrics

Orchestration of such reviews falls to leaders.

Leaders need to establish a process for systematically

recording teachers observations of student difficulties in

learning and their suggestions for addressing those problems.

Job 3: Responsibilities Related to Results (Gap Analysis)

• If curriculum represents the important “inputs” of schooling, what are the “outputs” in terms of learning?

Gap Analysis

• Academic leaders need to ensure that every educator understands that his/her job is to work toward the mission and goals by identifying and working to close the inevitable

gaps between mission and reality.

Adjustments matter more than the original blueprint.

Examine results from a variety of sources: external tests, local cornerstone assessments and samples of student work.

Use feedback from students, parents, alumni and related institutional clients about what is working and what isn’t.

Reform “by design” means that the actions taken are deliberate and focused on a clear and defensible end result.

REQUIRED for Reform

1. Unwavering commitment to core principles

2. Constant willingness to change direction, approach, and personnel based on feedback.

New structures must be in place that demand and encourage constant review of educational decisions by getting and using feedback.

…is a function of constant and deliberate self correction, mindful of clear and agreed-upon goals while unflinchingly seeking out feedback and thus dealing with reality

…wanting to learn why students are bored or made to feel stupid, and it takes action to correct conduct at odds with the mission.

…wanting to know how schools can be learning organizations if faculty resist learning.

Make mandatory for staff to collect data and feedback by asking questions

1.What is working in mathematics, writing, foreign language, and other subjects?

2.What isn’t working?

3.What do you propose to do about it?

4.What resulted from your action research?

Job 4: Responsibilities Related to Personnel

• Clarifying Job Expectations• Providing training, supervision and evaluation

guided by results-focused criteria

Hiring and Placement

Getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats.

Hiring and Placement

• Interview protocol – “think-aloud” about big ideas in your content area– “So tell me, if you were going to teach such a unit,

what would you be looking for in your assessment?”– “What would you do to move kids beyond a naïve

response?”– “What would you do instructionally to move the less

sophisticated answers along?”– “What would you do to make this more fair, more

differentiated, more successful for more kids?”

Professional Development

• Schooling by design implies that

the topics and structures for

staff development are determined by what is needed to close the gaps

Professional Development

• Educational leaders need to support new teachers during their formative

early years through carefully sequenced induction programs and mentorships.

Professional Development

• Educational leaders use available time

proactively to help teachers

keep abreast of current information about teaching and learning

Feedback and Appraisal

• Ensuring that the job is done well– Instead of fixation on the actions and behaviors of

the teacher learning-focused

supervision concentrates on the desired results of teaching—• Purposeful engagement of learners• Learners evidence of understanding and transfer

Is everyone in your school on the bus?

Are the people on the bus in the right seats?

Job 5: Responsibilities Related to Structure, Policies and Resources

• Policies• Decision-making and

governance mechanisms• Organizational routines• Schedules• Incentives• Resources

Time & Mission

• What is the best use of our time together?• Do current uses of time get the job done most

effectively and efficiently?• How much “new” time do we need to

accomplish identified tasks?

Time and Mission

Teaming and Mission

Middletown Area High School

5 Academic Pathways—traditional academic departments & 5 Pathway departments

Job 6: Responsibilities Related to Culture

• The academic leaders job is to ensure that the culture of the school is mission focused

Job 6: Responsibilities Related to Culture

• Criteria of a positive school culture– Mission focused on student and teacher learning– Sense of history and purpose– Core values– Positive beliefs & assumptions about student & staff potential for

growth– Strong professional community– Positive communication flow– Shared leadership– Rituals and ceremonies– Celebrations of success– Physical environment that symbolizes job and pride– Shared sense of respect and caring

Becoming a Learning Organization

• Only if academic leaders model, invite, and demand learning about learning regularly and formally

• Translation: The leader’s job is not to

pose solutions but to raise questions and

demand thoughtful analysis of

problems, leading to solutions “owned” by all parties affected.

Why?

• Sustainability….

Questions?