I. Purpose of Education
Education is the primary tool of social change in the United States. It is a force that unifies a diverse country; a method of inculcating in the citizenry the core American values of freedom, equality and justice; and increasingly education will become the pivotal component in helping our nation reestablish its historical role as a moral leader in an ever shrinking technological world. Such an expansive and ambitious role for education presents institutional challenges. The current system of K-12 education is wholly unprepared for the aforementioned tasks. A massive infusion of resources, both financial and political must accompany this expanded mission. Furthermore, the schools themselves and the agents in the schools must greatly change their habits to meet these demands. To better understand how the nation at large, and schools in particular, must expand their thinking, it is helpful to think about what a graduate of this new system of education might look like.
A child born today in the United States will graduate high school in 2034. With the pace of technological innovation and social change in the world today, one runs a fool’s errand in trying to predict in detail what the world in 2034 will be like. However, with the ever increasing connectedness of the world brought on by the increased use of the internet and interdependence needed to fight world problems such a global warming and population growth, one can foresee a world in which citizens from every country will have to be far more able to understand the world outside of their local communities and parochial interests. So what qualities must a graduate have to function in this world? Only after setting the goal can one begin to figure out how to achieve that goal.
The Graduate of 2034 must embody three vital and related attributes. First, The Graduate must understand her multifaceted roles as a US and world citizen. Second, The Graduate must have the necessary academic skills to open doors of opportunity locally, nationally and internationally. Lastly, The Graduate must not only tolerate but embrace human diversity and diverse experiences.
First and foremost, The Graduate of 2034 will have a greater sense of civic responsibility than her forbearers. With a well rounded and nuanced understanding of America’s unique place in the world as the sole military and economic superpower, The Graduate must appreciate that although the United States has historically done much good in the world, it, like all other nations, has flaws. The Graduate must be skeptical about her leaders, both inside and outside of government. The Graduate must also understand the interconnectedness of the world, and America’s place in this web of nations and peoples. As a nation of immigrants with greater diversity than any other, The Graduate must understand America’s role as a case of study of what the world could be, both good and bad. Furthermore, The Graduate must appreciate the good and bad in America and feel the responsibility to help it become a better place. Through community service and political engagement, The Graduate will understand that an individual can effect change, and has the responsibility to do so. Lastly, The Graduate will be a thoroughly political animal, participating not just in elections, but civic organizations both large and small.
This fictitious Graduate must not only have the habits and skills of citizenship, but also the academic knowledge needed to open doors of opportunity. The Graduate of 2034 will be prepared for college, having received rigorous academic instruction in writing, reading, math, history (with an emphasis on world history and current events), the sciences, economics and foreign languages. The Graduate also will complete coursework in the arts, and participate in many extracurricular activities. Perhaps most importantly, the graduate will have been taught from her earliest age with the most cutting edge technology of the time. With basic competencies and exposure to a wide range of academic subjects, The Graduate will be well positioned to make decisions about her future studies.
In addition to a challenging core curriculum, The Graduate will also understand and embrace the value of diversity in all its senses. The Graduate will have had teachers from diverse backgrounds, made friends who do not look or sound like themselves, and learned at least one foreign language to the point of fluency. The Graduate will have studied abroad for a period of time during high school, and have hosted a foreign student herself. She will understand the value of diversity, and be able to empathize with those who are different from her.
Few graduates from our nation’s schools today have the range and quality of experience as this fictional graduate of 2034. However, if the United States seeks to build on its successes and avoid the mistakes of its past and present, future graduates must have these qualities of active citizenship, academic competence, and appreciation of diversity. The schools in their present form will not create such students. Change is necessary at all levels of the education establishment, from the President down to the classroom teacher. The following proposals hope to flesh out what is needed to prepare our future students for our future world.
II. Educational Leadership
There is no shortage of people in positions of leadership in education. The President of the United States, university administrators and professors, K-12 principals, veteran teachers, parents, community figures, Priests and Rabbi’s, older siblings, and media companies all could be considered educational leaders in their own ways, even if they fail to realize it. There are certain habits and attributes effective educational leaders at all levels must have, including a belief in education, a willingness to try new things, hiring good people and then trusting them to do the job, setting goals and building coalitions to achieve them, and most importantly, modeling the kinds of behaviors you hope to develop in those you lead.
Without a belief in the transformative power of education, educational leaders at all levels will limit their own effectiveness and ambition. If the President does not see education as a means of social change, he (or she) will not dedicate the political capital necessary to supporting it. If a principal doubts the power of education, he or she may be satisfied with poor results. If a parent doubts the power of education, she may not push her child to do her best. In each circumstance, believing that education is a way to improve one’s life, or the vitality of the country, is a necessary but not sufficient component of being an educational leader.
Beyond believing in the cause, an educational leader must be willing to take chances and try new things. Rightly or wrongly, many people stereotype educational leaders as perpetuators of the status quo. A leader must be willing to take risks and try new things at all levels. Shifting resources from textbooks to laptops might not be the safe move, but it might improve education. Allowing teachers to serve on the hiring committee could improve faculty morale and create an esprit de corps that might have far reaching positive effects. Creating connections with other schools both foreign and domestic and building relationships with them might not be typical, but could create a synergy among teachers and students alike. Throughout history, those who innovate sometime succeed, often fail, but always learn. Educational leaders should be agents of innovation. In the quickly changing world, innovation only increases in importance. Being able to adapt to new technologies and ideas quickly will separate those who are nimble and flexible from those who are stubborn and calcified.
Creative innovation without good implementation will lead nowhere. To implement ideas at all levels of education, leaders must surround themselves with good people and trust these people to get the job done. Most positions of educational leadership, be it President or Principal, are far too complex and time consuming for an individual. School leaders must rely on others and have the confidence to delegate important tasks, knowing that the end result may not be exactly as was imagined. School leaders should see these subordinates as future leaders themselves, and create the scaffolds and freedoms for them to succeed in their own ways. School leaders should actively seek advice from all stakeholders, and be transparent in their decision making process. Inherent on reliance upon others is surrounding oneself with good people. Hiring decisions are perhaps the most important decisions a school leader makes, and leaders should take the necessary time to vet and hire the best people available.
Believing in education and surrounding oneself with top quality people is important, but leaders must also set goals and build coalitions to achieve them. Goal setting and coalition building are inextricably linked. If goal creation happens in the Principal’s office alone, it will be harder to get the people needed to implement the goal to do so. Setting goals must be a collaborative process in which the leader may guide the discussion but not have complete control over the outcome. Leaders are often the catalysts for change, raising new issues and confronting difficult problems, but they cannot solve these problems on their own. Maintaining positive working relationship with all interested parties - parents, teachers, district administrators - is vital if a school leader wants anything substantive to be accomplished. Although the coalition building process may be slow and seemingly inefficient, setting goals without ever achieving them is far less efficient.
Most importantly, educational leaders must model the behaviors they wish to instill. If a principal wants her teachers to work hard, she must work hard herself. If a principal wants the students to appreciate and embrace diversity, the principal must ensure a diverse faculty and support staff. If a principal wants to encourage intellectual risk taking, the principal must be willing to try new things herself. Without modeling the kinds of behaviors that a principal wants in her school, the talking and sloganeering will sound empty.
To be good leaders is not a simple or easy task. Undoubtedly, leaders at all stages of their careers will have moments of success and failure. So long as educational leaders learn from their mistakes and continue to innovate, the school will be a place of growth, and students will learn the value of risk taking and reflection, two qualities necessary for navigating the world in the 21st century.
III. The School Community
Many people both inside and outside of education would likely define a “school community” in a very narrow geographical sense. For example, many would argue that the school community of Branford, Connecticut – my childhood home - is the town of Branford. Educational leaders must avoid such a narrow definition of what the school community includes. The school community encompasses both the local, national and international community. Locally, the school community includes the parents, the teachers, the businesses around the school and myriad other actors. Nationally and internationally, the school community includes family from the countries that the students or their families originated, and school children around the world with similar interests and concerns. Only by defining the community in the broadest possible way will schools meet the challenges of producing graduates with a truly global view of the world.
Although a school leader’s job is to define school community broadly, on a day to day basis she may interact with a far smaller universe of people, including teachers, parents, students, community leaders and businesses. It is important that the school leader actively seeks out information about the values and culture of the local community. To create a school that is open to the outside, the school leader must understand the outside world and what it expects of schools, and what the schools expect of it. There are many ways a school leader can learn about the community. Starting by looking at census data, a school leader can begin to understand the racial and socioeconomic composition of the neighborhood. By meeting with community leaders – religious, political, and business – a school leader can learn about the self identified strengths and weaknesses of the community. By surveying parents and encouraging teachers and school personnel to make home visits, the school leader can foster a sense of sharing and of valuing the attributes of the community. These are all essential components in understanding the community, and building a foundation upon which the school serves as a place that increases the social capital of a neighborhood and its children.
As a school builds meaningful relationships to the community, it can become an integral part of addressing the community’s needs. Schools often have many resources that communities covet. For example, schools often have physical facilities that neighborhood organizations do not, including computer labs, athletic facilities and auditoriums. A school leader who is overly territorial about school space only alienates the community, and misses an opportunity to build relationships with those outside the school walls. Conversely, the community outside of school has many resources that are in short supply in schools, including potential mentors for students, business expertise, workplace internship possibilities and political influence. The school leader that is able to figuratively tear down the walls separating schools from their communities will do a great service to both the school and the community.
Assessing the strengths and needs of the community is important, but so too is assessing the strengths and needs of individual students and families. Ultimately, schools must educate the students that walk through the door, not the students they wished had walked through the door. To provide the best education possible, school leaders must lead the process of identifying what needs the student population has. Are there language barriers that present challenges for teachers? Are there topics that the students’ families might be opposed to studying? Are there certain subjects that should be emphasized? By seeking out feedback from students and the community, school leaders can learn much about what and how the school should teach. Also, hiring people to work in the school who are familiar with the community is a good way to gain knowledge and credibility.
There may be times that the values of the community conflict with the values of the school. For example, perhaps the community is highly religious and wants to avoid teaching evolution. It is the school leader’s job to mediate the needs of the community with the needs of the school in preparing the students for the 21st century. In such a situation, the personal and professional relationships a principal develops become all the more critical. The school leader will have to play peacemaker, creating an atmosphere of open and honest debate. At times, the school leader may have to sacrifice some personal beliefs at the altar community harmony. If the community and the school end up in conflict, nobody wins.
Most of the discussion about the school leader’s role in building the school community focuses on the school itself. However, the school leader should also, at every opportunity, extend the community outward. By setting up exchanges with other schools both around the country and world school leaders can extend the definition of community in a way that serves the interests of the students. These exchanges could be simple (emailing, blogging) or complex (study abroad, teacher swaps). Students must learn how to communicate with people unlike themselves, and broadening the reach of the school community is one way to accomplish this.
IV. The Professional Community
The professionally community in a school encompasses more than the principal and teachers. A school leader should view all the adults in a school as professionals, from the cafeteria worker to the security guard, from the guidance counselor to the payroll secretary. Every person who works in a school plays a critical role in the operation of the school, and the more that each person feels valued and respected as a professional, the better the outcomes for the students. This does not mean that all adults should attend faculty meetings or vote on curricular issues, but rather that all adults, in their particular domains, are given the freedom to innovate and the support to make new and fresh ideas a reality. For example, student diet has an immediate impact on performance in the classroom. If a school leader treats cafeteria workers as professionals, it is more likely that they might think up new ways of making the food more healthy, perhaps increasing student learning.
As members of a professional community, all the adults in the school have certain responsibilities as well. First, members of a professional community must be committed to the cause of educating children. Every adult in a school is important to students’ educations, and they must see themselves in that light. Second, members of a professional community must be committed to improving themselves through training and reflection. Without reflecting on what works and what needs improvement, there is not reason to think that growth will take place. Being open to new ideas is also a critical component of improving oneself professionally. Furthermore, being generous with one’s ideas is also important. Lastly, for a professional community to thrive, members must being willing to collaborate with one another. Collaboration, while often taking longer, encourages growth and compromise, two skills that the adults must model for the students. Also, collaboration often produces better and more creative results than working in isolation.
The guiding principles that support these professional interactions include honesty, trust and openness. Without the members of the professional community being honest about their thoughts, collaborative relationships will be doomed to fail. Without a feeling of trust in both the motivations and abilities of others, these professional relationships will fail. Without the transparency in how and why decisions are made, the ideas and initiatives that grow out of the collaborative relationships will be suspect and not achieve the maximum degree of success. From an ethical and moral standpoint, members of a professional community have the obligation to subjugate their personal desires and parochial needs for the good of the group. This might mean accepting majority rule on certain items, but also respecting the will of the minority as well.
Developing a dynamic professional community among all the adults in a school is inseparable from the kind of school that will produce scholars for the 21st century. Teachers will have to constantly be learning new teaching pedagogies and new educational technologies to keep up with the quickly changing times. Without excellent collaborative relationships professionally, teachers will not adapt their practice to fit the ever changing needs of the students.
School leaders, in addition to being members of this professional community, also have the responsibility of bridging the school with outside organizations, particularly colleges and universities, that can help improve instruction. There is too broad a chasm between the research completed in higher education and the practice in the classroom. School leaders must stay abreast of the latest research in how students learn best, and how teachers teach best, and share these practices within the professional community. Teachers, often overburdened by their day to day tasks, will not necessarily be able to explore the latest research that is relevant to their practice.
V. Determining Student Outcomes
Perhaps the most politicized of all issues in education today is testing and accountability. The proponents of increased testing say that it raises standards and ensures that schools failing their students will be shut down. Those opposed to the widespread use of testing say that it cheapens education and does not measure what it claims to measure. Underlying the arguments on both sides are competing visions of the purpose of education, and what students should learn.
There is no doubt that schools, teachers and students should be held accountable for their performance, but how? Standardized multiple choice tests often do not measure what they claim to measure, and the results may be used in for unintended purposes. Ideally, the bulk of student testing should be formative and used constructively to both benefit student and teachers. For example, having periodic tests can be helpful if the items on the test inform teachers of the topics that they have taught well, and the topics that they need to re-teach. Testing that is not linked to curriculum does little to serve education. Beyond (or in place of) standard, multiple choice type tests, schools should also measure students in other ways. Well designed portfolio assessments, oral exams, and performances are a few types of assessments that schools and teachers should employ regularly. Although they each may be more expensive and time consuming than a bubble test, they will also be more effective at determining what the students have learned, and will better prepare the students for their lives after they leave school.
If schools are to educate students to be model citizens, schools and the public at large must also come to grips with the idea that there are some aspects of education that resist, and may be impossible to test. Many people both inside and outside of education talk of creating students who love learning and will choose to continue to learn throughout their lives. How would one test a love of learning? Many people want students to develop compassion for others – a concept that resists multiple choice tests or portfolio assessments. Many parts of the socialization that occurs in schools that is so important to a healthy body politic resists testing. There are innumerable other important facets of a student’s education that are difficult to test, but that does not mean that schools should shy away from teaching and developing them. A danger with high stakes testing is that it forces schools to value those attributes that are easily “testable” over those that may resist multiple choice answers. If our goal is to produce exemplary citizens, we may have to sacrifice some of the testing so that schools are free to teach the kind of civic skills and character building needed in a vibrant democracy.
VI. Establishing Effective Instructional Practices
The best teachers are excellent learners themselves. A school leader should encourage every person in the school – adult or child – to constantly reflect and improve upon their work. The school leader herself should model this behavior as well. When students can see adults modeling good learning behaviors, they will be much more likely to adopt them in their own lives. The behavior that leaders should encourage at all levels includes cooperative planning, constant observation, and intense reflection.
Cooperative planning at the teacher level means structuring teacher schedules so that teachers can both meet with other subject teachers to discuss and plan curriculum, and with the other teachers who work with the same students to do cross-curricular planning and planning for individual students as well. When professionals plan together there is much greater ability to see new ideas, try new lessons and support one another. To make cooperative planning work, school leaders must pay particular attention to the strengths and weaknesses of the teachers. Much like a teacher in a classroom should create heterogeneous groupings, so too should a school leader.
The second aspect of creating an excellent teachers and learners is observation. Teachers must have structured time to observe one another. When teachers are able to see each other teach, they will be much more likely to adopt best practices and create a community of learners. Observations will also help build morale as teachers will see the successes and challenges that each other faces. Furthermore, observing other teachers regularly will model good learning for students. If educators expect students to work well together with people not necessarily like themselves, than teachers should do this as well.
Beyond planning and observation, a school leader should also stress the importance of reflection. All the cooperative planning and observation will be for naught if teachers do not constantly reflect on what they are doing, what is working and what should be changed. Having teachers reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses will enable a school leader to tailor the kinds of professional development opportunities to what the teacher sees as most beneficial. Too often, professional development is a top down assessment of the needs of a school. Although top down assessments may often be best at identifying needs, if teachers do not agree with the assessment, they will be less likely to implement whatever change is proscribed, rendering the professional development less effective than a teacher generated idea.
Most of the aforementioned ideas center on teacher to teacher relationships, but a school leader is also an integral part of developing instructional practices. Beyond spending as much time in classrooms as he does in his principal’s office, a school leader should also be an instructional leader. While it is unrealistic to have a school leader teach a full load, school leaders should be teachers. Even if it is only one section, school leaders will be more able to empathize and work effectively with teachers if they do no lose sight of what it is like to be a teacher. Also, by maintaining relationships with students, a school leader will not fall into the trap of only interacting with the students who present challenges for the school, a trap that often results in policies that are more draconian than need be.
There are myriad other ways to provide excellent instruction in school. Having a user friendly school website with password protected access to student grades will enable parents to better track a child’s progress. Developing peer tutoring programs within school can be a valuable way of building on the strengths of the students and providing additional help without additional teacher time. Encouraging parent volunteers to pick up many of the mundane tasks of teaching such as making copies can free up teachers to focus on more important tasks like lesson preparation. These and many other small but important ideas can add immeasurably to creating an effective learning environment.
VII. Other Important Issues
Most of this educational platform focuses on the student, class and school. Increasingly, school leaders are becoming educational leaders. The school leader who does not think beyond the walls of his school cedes important decision making to people who may not have the experience and insight of someone working with young people everyday. Along these lines, there are two issues that school leaders must actively engage: teacher training and educational funding.
The current system of teacher education is highly inefficient at best, and educational malpractice at worst. When so many teachers do not last beyond their first five years of teaching, something is broken. Perhaps it is that new teachers often find themselves in the most difficult classrooms. Perhaps the high attrition rate is due to the poor preparation new teachers receive in graduate schools of education. Or the low pay new teachers receive could result in a less committed teaching corps. Most likely, the answer is all three. There are ways that teacher education could improve.
First, the system of teacher placement must change. The schools with the most difficult student population should have the bulk of the experienced and talented teachers. Not only should new teachers begin their careers in positions that are easier, but new teachers should not be expected to do the same job as veterans. A new teacher should be thought of the same way as a medical resident – shadowing experienced teachers and doing some limited teaching of his/her own. After a period of a year or two, the teacher can then expand the course load, but perhaps still be sheltered by not having an overwhelming number of different classes to teach. If new teachers could experience success in their first years, by the time they faced the challenge of a full class schedule, they would have built the necessary experience to deal with it.
Not only should the classes that new teachers work with change, but so too should the teacher education programs. Although there is clearly a need to bridge the divide between educational researchers and classroom practice, using professors who do not have the knowledge of what new teachers need is both a waste of student-teacher and professorial time. Another problem all too common among educational professors is that they have limited k-12 teaching experience themselves. How can a system rely on its teachers being educated by professors who often have not ever done what they are teaching others to do? One possible way to bridge this divide is to have more university classes team taught by a professor and a veteran teacher. In this arrangement, the professor can bring the academic knowledge and research base, and the veteran classroom teacher can help bridge the divide between what the professor knows and what the student teachers need to take away. Although this may seem inefficient to have two teachers in each classroom, it is far more efficient than the current situation, having many teacher education classes be little more than a rubberstamp on the way to a credential.
While reforming the teacher education system and the way new teachers enter the profession could have widespread positive effects on teacher retention and quality, these reforms pale in comparison to what is needed with school financing. So long as the tax bases of municipalities differ so profoundly, the system of reliance on local taxes as the primary source of educational funding perpetuates inequality. Schools should be funded at the at least the state, but preferably the federal level. If this were the case, then systemic reforms could actually take place, because the dollars could go where they are most needed.
VIII. Clarifying Key Principles
Returning to the original thought experiment of what a graduate in the year 2034 should embody, a few key principles shine through. People, be they students, parents, teachers or school leaders must feel empowered. Without a sense of ownership over their lives, good results will continue to elude. Feeling the ability to influence one’s own destiny is what a democracy purports to be about, and schools are proving grounds for democratic citizens. School leaders should focus on hiring teachers with a similar vision of the purpose and importance of education. Although teachers need not all accomplish the goal in the same way, or have the same political beliefs or pedagogical styles, they must all have a shared vision in the importance of education and the value of every student.