Poor Leadership in School Systems

Eduwonk pointed me to this column in the New York Times about retired Army Lieutenant Colonel who took over as Superintendent of the schools in Rockford, Illinois.  Financial mismanagement, a desegregation suit, white flight, and poor coordination with unions had created a failed school system. 

Except for one elementary school.  Eighty percent nonwhite and 85% poor, but with third grade reading scores trailing only those of a school for the gifted.  The problem?  Direct instruction.  The school used DI.  And, guess what the central office "professionals" did not want to use?  You got it.  They did not want DI.  They wanted "balanced literacy."  The principal didn't agree.  The superintendent transferred her.  He saw the issue as one of obedience.

"This is not a curriculum issue alone with her," he said. "It is a leadership issue. Good leaders need to be good followers first." He could not tolerate Ms. Parker's disobeying orders.

OK.  I know DI is controversial.  But, isn't this just typical?  A "non-education" superintendent brought in to change things getting led around by the nose by his "instructional staff" who say things like:

"Do we teach the same skills with balanced literacy? Yes," said Robin Paschal, the new reading coordinator at Lewis Lemon. "Do we want to bring children to a level of mastery? Yes. But in a brain-based way. Are we addressing that when we use direct instruction? No."

Ahhhh!   Noooo!  Not "brain-based"!  Tell me she didn't say "brain-based"!  What does she think DI is?  Stomach-based?

Ok.  The sheer idiocy of some local central office "expert" deriding something like DI is breath-taking.  But even more distressing is the way leaders assume that they can just jerk away something that teachers have worked at and expect them to perform competently at whatever they decide to implement.  Really.  Mind boggling.

What do you think would have happened if the Superintendent had, instead of accepting at face value the this-is-how-it-should-be-done and every-school-must-do-it-the-same opinions of his "experts" and done some narrative inquiry, run a few anecdote circles?  Is it possible he would have learned just how many times this has happened to teachers?  How burned out they are at "the next great plan" from the central office.  Might he have realized that, what he really needed was an engaged teaching force learning and developing as they go.  And he's not going to get it this way.

Comments

[flcertifiedteacher]

Dave, Thanks for your nice comment to me. To keep balanced and focused, I have revised my original site, and added two new ones about this superintendent. Enjoy:

Dennis Thompson Responds

(The above parody site features over 50 actual Letters to the Editor against Thompson, as well as four new videos about the turmoil in this district); and

Dennis Thompson Background Quiz

Over 200 people have taken this quiz since I began posting these ten questions and multiple choice answers about Thompson's actual background, and many more have seen this quiz.

(Last night I added a bonus question to the above site; check it out by scrolling down on the left.)

It is very disheartening to see the charges brought by this new superintendent. He has no current application on file for his job as required, a background that doesn't makes sense, and he doesn't seem to like free speech very much at all, as evidenced by links following the background quiz bonus question.)

Maybe these two sites above will inspire another thoughtful essay from you. In the meantime, enjoy!

[David Shearon]

Thanks, flcertifiedteacher! Your points about environment support my position in favor of teacher-led instructional improvement. And, I have seen your site. Hope your sense of humor helps you and others keep balanced and focused on teaching and learning!

[flcertifiedteacher]

I need some clarification. What is the difference between DI and balanced literacy? I think what I am really asking, is what characterizes each of those things?
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Dave, I appreciated your essay here.

I will try to answer the question above.

Speaking as a Florida certified teacher familiar with both Direct Instruction and Balanced Literacy, my conclusion is this:

Each program may or may not have a plus and minus category, and two professional educators can debate this endlessly. However, in my view, both programs -- and, any reading program, for that matter -- can also be poorly implemented.

For example, in Balanced Literacy, you are required to do small group work with small groups of students; however, this is very difficult when a school sticks you in a portable classroom packed with students and no place exists for a small table to meet with students as required. As a result, this required part of the program may well get tossed out the window. And, this is a situation beyond the teacher's control when there are simply too many desks and too many students and literally no space for a small table -- even if you had a small table. The environment is key for learning, and every teacher knows that.

With respect to Direct Instruction, there can also be problems, some of which a teacher can solve and some the teacher may not be able to solve. As just one example: what happens when a teacher claims to have done everything the program requires, but student test scores are still much lower than scores should be, according to the "research" for Direct Instruction? What is going on in that situation? (And, by the way: this did NOT happen to me; but I know it has happened with other teachers.)

The pressure is on that teacher to meet the scores predicted by research. Is it possible that pressure becomes too much for a teacher? No matter how many professional development workshops are offered in this program? Teachers burn out under too much pressure.

But the biggest factor to consider, above and beyond all, is this one: When a teacher IS successful, CELEBRATE the success. Don't DESTROY the teacher's success with the students, regardless of the reading program used. SUCCESS is what we strive for with every student. That is Rule Numero UNO in education. And, any principal -- or superintendent -- who does not know that very basic principle should NEVER be allowed to set foot in any public school system. NEVER.

Just my opinion (and as you surely know, as a professional, I am entitled to have one).

We need more weeding out at the top of the school district pyramid -- and we need to dispose of certain types of superintendents as quickly as possible. Again, my opinion.

PS I made a parody blog on the chaos curently happening in a school district, and I think you might appreciate it, as I linked to your site here. My parody blog was recently featured in THE GRADEBOOK, an education blog at the St Petersburg Times in Florida:

http://blogs.tampabay.com/schools/2008/04/something-to-la.html

Enjoy!

[Dave Shearon]

That's right. Different approaches within a school system are possible. See _The 90% Reading Goal_:

http://www.shearonforschools.com/Books%20Frame.htm

and

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0966687507/qid=1109559850/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-6219928-4504713?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[KH]

OK, I still don't understand why a school district can't have different options. One school could do DI, another Guided Reading, another something else. I am a DI proponent but can see the problems with shoving DI down the throats of administrators and teachers.

[Dave Shearon]

Nancy, DI is a system of instruction pioneered at the University of Oregon that is based on the principle that what a teacher does in a lesson matters. In reading, it also focuses on teaching phonemic awareness and phonics generally, plus word recognition, through carefully scripted and sequenced lessons that teachers are to follow exactly.

Balanced literacy proposes much less specificity in teacher behavior with the idea that phonemic awareness and phonics can be taught without careful attention to specific instruction and sequencing.

Having ventured those comments, I should say that I know I have grossly underdescribed both DI and balanced literacy -- and I know that these topics are to-the-death wars for fervent believers on both sides. If you keep asking questions about this topic, don't be surprised if the answers degenerate into flame wars.

[Nancy]

I need some clarification. What is the difference between DI and balanced literacy? I think what I am really asking, is what characterizes each of those things?

[Elizabeth]

Very well said!!