The Education Gadfly Weekly

Last week, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute teamed up with the London-based Education Foundation to host a conference, “School Leadership: Lessons from England”; to publish a new paper by University of Pennsylvania professor Jonathan Supovitz and the Center for Policy Research in Education, Building a Lattice for School Leadership: The Top-to-Bottom Rethinking of Leadership Development in England and What It Might Mean for American Education; and to release a short documentary, Leadership Evolving: New Models of Preparing School Heads.

The catalyst for all three was the aggressive reform effort of the English government over the past decade to revamp that country’s approach to school leadership. At the center of the reform is the eminently sensible idea that school leadership needs to be a team endeavor.

No, it’s not a new idea. There’s been plenty of discussion about “distributed leadership” on both sides of the pond for years. But while we’ve mostly jawboned the idea, the Brits got busy doing it.

What they did in particular was clarify and formalize three levels of school leadership, each with distinct roles and responsibilities: headteachers who lead schools (equivalent to the principal’s role in the U.S.), senior leaders or deputy heads who assist the headteacher (similar to the vice principal role in American education, but with additional school-wide responsibilities), and middle leaders responsible for the quality of teaching within a certain department, grade level, or grade cluster. Each level (and some differing roles within the level) comes with its own mix of time devoted to teaching and time spent leading (see figure).

Leadership Roles in British Secondary Schools

Source: Smith, B. “Leadership Role in English Secondary Schools,” Working Paper, 2010 (via Leading Educators).

The concept of “middle leadership”—what we tend to call “teacher leadership” in the U.S.—is particularly innovative. In England, these are teachers who still spend most of their time in the classroom, but also take on additional instruction-related responsibilities. These include jobs (like curriculum development) that we typically assign to administrators, “instructional coaches,” or central office staff, but also line-management duties, especially supervising, supporting, and evaluating other teachers.

England formalized the roles of head, senior, and middle leaders through several key steps. First, its National College for Teaching and Leadership established nationwide standards for all three levels. Then it developed and provided specific training for each role and granted credentials to candidates who successfully completed the programs. More recently, the National College has devolved these training responsibilities to regional providers, and government is now pushing for “school-led improvements” via “teaching schools,” akin to U.S. experiments with “professional development schools” (albeit with less university involvement).

Meanwhile, virtually all public schools on our side of the sea are still led by one principal or by principals and vice-principals, much as they were fifty years ago.

While there’s growing interest in teacher leadership in America today, thanks to the efforts of organizations like Leading Educators and Teach Plus, we’re not yet far from the starting gate.  That’s because most teacher leaders, to the extent that they are even identified, don’t yet have formal authority, particularly when it comes to supervising other teachers. That’s not to say they aren’t exerting leadership in their schools; to be able to get colleagues to follow you without formal authority is one sign of great leadership. But if we believe that organizations are best led by a team, rather than an individual, and if we believe that one person, no matter how great, cannot effectively supervise dozens of teachers (as happens in most American schools), then we have a long way yet to go.

How might we transition to the team-leadership approach? This is where things get tricky. A “National College” is out of the question, for obvious reasons. But even states have been hesitant to establish their own principal-training programs; it’s hard to imagine them developing teacher-leader programs. Might they establish credentials for teacher-leaders that would allow these people to supervise and evaluate their peers? Perhaps. But even if they did, most local districts would need to negotiate new contracts with their teacher unions that would allow one union member to evaluate another union member—another stretch, it seems to us.

As in so many areas of American education, the fragmentation of our system (14,000 districts and 1,200 teacher- and leader-preparation institutions, plus strong unions) makes the adoption of commonsense ideas mighty challenging.

But one sector within American public education is already moving toward this team approach to leadership: Charter schools. The KIPP network, for instance, has developed multiple levels of leadership for its schools, from executive directors of citywide clusters to school principals and vice principals to deans, department- and grade-level chairs, as well as rank-and-file teachers who assume additional leadership or coaching responsibilities. This makes sense for at least two reasons. First, by truly distributing leadership, it makes the job more doable by non-super-humans. Second, it provides a clear career trajectory for KIPP’s teachers—the kind of “career ladder” that reformers have been promoting at least since Lamar Alexander was governor of Tennessee.

As with so many other innovations—blended learning, extended learning time, the smart use of data to guide instruction, etc.—the flexibility afforded by the charter model allows the concept of teacher leadership to go from idea to reality without untangling the Gordian knot of rules, regulations, contractual provisions and HR practices that have been accumulating in the traditional public schools for decades. We’d love to see the district sector embrace a team approach to leadership, too. But there it’s harder to be optimistic. Which, as the English would say, leaves us gutted, while charters make us chuffed to bits.

(Stay tuned for a Fordham Institute paper this winter that will lay out additional new directions and innovations needed in the leadership space.)

photo credit: Iker Merodlo via Flickr

Halfway through my senior year of college, I quit. Why? Because I didn’t want to graduate. I had no idea what I was going to do next.

I was one of those students who did everything she was supposed to do. Good grades, good college, all that. But school was all I had ever known, and not once during my sixteen years of education do I recall anyone ever making an explicit connection between what I was learning in school and what I might actually do for a living once I was done. The goal of high school was to get into college. The goal of college was to get a degree. Then what? I wasn’t at all prepared for that question.

I come from a background of abundant educational privilege. I grew up in the 1970s and ‘80s in an affluent New England town with great public schools. My parents had graduated from college. My grandparents had graduated from college. On my dad’s side even my great grandfather had a bachelor’s degree. I was on the “college track” before I was born.

But there was another track: vocational education. I had friends on that path. Their parents were roofers, hairdressers, secretaries, and janitors. Those kids took basic level academic classes, but their focus was preparing for work. No one expected them to go to college.

Those of us bound for higher education felt like we were on the better path, destined for more fulfilling, higher-income careers. Just exactly what those careers would be, and how we were going to get there, was not something we were encouraged to think about. Our job was to go to college.

Since the 1980s, when I graduated from high school, there has been a concerted effort to get more kids on my track, and this is mostly a good thing. Too many poor and minority students were excluded from the opportunity to pursue a college education.

But here’s the problem: The career path out of college is just as murky and mysterious for many young people today as it was for me twenty-five years ago. In fact, for many, it might be more confusing now. Ultimately, I had my college-educated parents and a network of connections to help get me started professionally once I finally got my degree (and there was never really any question I would go back and finish). Too many young people —especially first-generation college graduates—don’t have the resources and support I had.

Fortunately, the American educational system is starting to acknowledge this problem. There are many possible solutions, including more explicit career guidance in college, more internships, and more efforts to connect general education to work-related skills.

Another solution is more vocational education in high school.

This solution scares some people. They’re afraid more vocational education will result in some kids—mostly poor and minority students—missing out on the benefits of the college track. But I’d like to suggest that the kids who are really missing out are kids like me, who go straight to college without really thinking about it.

Vocational education gets kids to think about why they’re in school. It gives purpose to their learning. As one student said to me, “I actually like school now.”

And choosing this path doesn’t close the door on college; quite the opposite. In the nation’s best vocational high schools, students are being prepared for higher education and learning valuable skills that can get them the kinds of good-paying jobs that make college possible. They’re learning about engineering and biotechnology, doing internships at hospitals and aerospace companies, and taking AP English and AP calculus.

I learned all of this doing research for a recent radio documentary. I came away feeling surprised and envious. My editor felt the same way. Why couldn’t our high school experience have been a little more like this?

I’m not arguing that all education should be about acquiring job skills. I’m a huge supporter of the liberal arts, and I believe my bachelor’s degree in English and American studies has served me extremely well. (In fact, if you had to create the perfect job for a person with such a degree, it might be mine.)

I’m saying that good vocational high schools have figured out how to bring college prep into their curriculum. And it’s time that traditional academic high schools brought more vocational education into theirs.

If we’re going to encourage kids to go to college, we need to help them figure out why they want to go, what they want to study when they get there, and what they’re going to do with their degree once they’re done. You can see this happening in career academies, which try to blend the best of both approaches. But they're the exception.

When I was in high school, my peers and I on the college track felt like we were on the better path, we were the advantaged ones. Today, I think it’s the kids in good vocational schools who may have the advantage.

Emily Hanford is a graduate of Amherst College and education correspondent for the public radio documentary program American RadioWorks. You can find her documentary about vocational education here.

photo credit: CIS via Flickr

• Conventional wisdom suggests would-be GOP presidential candidates are supposed to disavow the Common Core (cf. Bobby Jindal), but Jeb Bush and Governor John Kasich didn’t get the memo. During a speech last Thursday in Washington, the former Florida governor emphasized the importance of raising academic standards in America’s schools, which starts with the Common Core. And if states opt to forgo adoption, any replacement ought to be even more rigorous, Bush said. Likewise, Governor Kasich, speaking last week at the Republican Governors Association, continued his strong and unwavering support of the CCSS, reiterating that governors wrote the standards and not the federal government. In other words, the Common Core is not a litmus test for Republicans.
• Due to tougher teacher exams, New York State saw a 20 percent drop in the number of new certifications for the 2013–14 school year, reports the New York Times. The Empire State introduced the new assessments last year in an attempt to boost the caliber of new teachers. Those who don’t pass can’t teach in public schools. Better still, ed schools with high failure rates risk losing accreditation. Raising standards for teachers was a critical part of the "Massachusetts miracle," and we're glad to see others following suit.
• The Atlantic published a big article written by Sarah Carr this month about a No Excuses high school in New Orleans that might be overdoing it on the discipline front. In a city with a plethora of school choices, many parents are enthusiastically sending their kids to ones that emphasize strict adherence to rules. Indeed, there’s evidence that these practices have helped boost student scores since 2007—and that kids from no-excuses charter school are more likely to go to college. Nevertheless, Carr’s thoughtful piece takes issue with strategies that take students out of the classroom—namely, suspensions and expulsions. It’s an important distinction, and one that many of New Orleans’ schools—and schools everywhere—are beginning to re-think.

Conor Williams guest stars.

The Ferguson grand jury decision, pre-K for disadvantaged kids, school discipline, and summer reading programs.

Amber's Research Minute

Jonathan Guryan, James S. Kim, David M. Quinn, "Does Reading During the Summer Build Reading Skills? Evidence from a Randomized Experiment in 463 Classrooms," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 20689 (November 2014).

What does school leadership development in England look like, how is it changing, and what can other countries learn from the English approach?

This study, conducted by economists at the University of Toronto, examines the impact of a comprehensive Canadian academic and social support program for at-risk youth called Pathways to Education. The voluntary program starts with a contract, signed by the youngsters and their and parents, that requires each student to participate in twice-monthly meetings with a “support worker” who helps the children deal with any academic or social issues that arise during their high school careers. Participants must also attend free weekly tutoring and group activities such as sporting events, cooking classes, and community recycling projects. They receive career counseling, college transition assistance, free transportation, and college scholarships up to $4,000. Its beneficiaries, who live in the largest public housing project in Toronto, are asked to participate prior to their ninth-grade year; between 80 and 96 percent of eligible students register. Authors compared outcomes before and after the introduction of the program to outcomes for students who resided in other Toronto public housing projects and also attended Toronto high schools between 2000 and 2007, which comprised roughly 6,900 students. In the end, it works: Pathways to Education puts poor kids on a better life trajectory. Five-year high school graduation rates increased from about 38 to 58 percent, and postsecondary enrollment rates increased by more than 50 percent. The program was expanded to two other sites in 2007, and those sites saw an immediate 10 percent increase in high school graduation rates and a similar increase in post-secondary enrollment. (College graduation data aren’t available.) The program costs, on average, $14,000 for each student’s full participation throughout high school. Federal, provincial, and local governments pay for half; foundations and donors cover the rest. It’s a rare example of a program that effectively improves academic outcomes for disadvantaged students. American communities ought to take heed.

SOURCE: Philip Oreopoulos, Robert S. Brown, and Adam M. Lavecchia, "Pathways to Education: An Integrated Approach to Helping At-Risk High School Students," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 20430 (August 2014).

The Cristo Rey Network comprises twenty-eight private schools serving 9,000 students nationwide. Ninety-six percent of network students are minority (largely Hispanic), and 100 percent are economically disadvantaged (defined as households earning less than 75 percent of the national median income). The schools utilize an innovative education model that honors its Catholic roots while simultaneously embracing new ways of preparing economically disadvantaged high school students for future success. This report from the Lexington Institute profiles the Cristo Rey model and looks at how—despite great success—the laudable network is still searching for ways to improve. A defining feature of the schools is a work-study program that requires students to work at least one day a week in the community while keeping up with rigorous high school coursework. In lieu of wages, companies donate money to the schools that’s used to cover most of the operating costs. More than 2,000 employers invested upwards of $44 million in 2013–14, lowering the average tuition costs for parents to $1,000 annually. Other features include extended school days and school years and a summer preparatory program that focuses on both academic and work skills. The results are impressive: All 1,400 of Cristo Rey's 2014 graduates were accepted to college, and 90 percent enrolled. Nevertheless, refusing to rest on its laurels, the network’s newest school—Cristo Rey San Jose Jesuit—is the first to utilize a blended-learning approach that integrates technology into math, English, Spanish, science, social studies, and even religion. Still in its infancy, the experiment has already improved instructional and operational efficiency in a way that’s likely adaptable to other Cristo Rey schools. This report gives readers a taste of the success already achieved and a vision of what’s to come.

NB: Fordham is proud to host a student from Don Bosco Cristo Rey High School; see here for information on becoming a Corporate Work Study Partner, too.

SOURCE: Ashley Bateman, The Cristo Rey Network: Serving Sustainable Success (Arlington, Virginia: Lexington Institute, November 2014).

Myriad obstacles stand between low-income students and a college education—even for those who beat the odds, graduate from high school, and gain acceptance into a post-secondary institution. Indeed, 20 percent of these young people will not make it past their first semester—which raises a couple of questions: Why is this happening? And how do we fix it?

According to authors Benjamin Castleman and Lindsay Page, much of the problem is what happens (or doesn’t) between the last day of high school and the first days of college. They call it the “summer melt.” Things like stacks of enrollment paperwork, complicated financial forms, and daunting tuition bills prove to be substantial hindrances for these kids, many of whom are the first in their families to make it this far. And once they get to campus, they often lack the support to persevere through those difficult first months. In other words, preparing these youngsters for freshman year involves more than academics. To this end, the authors propose three solutions.

First, high schools need to expand the role of college counselors, paying them to work in the summer months and encouraging them to spend more time with individual students in need. The Boston-based college access organization, uAspire, did this and saw positive results. Next, higher education institutions should utilize technology to keep students informed and on target throughout the college enrollment process. One example is the SCOPE project, which launched a texting strategy that kept students up to date with their enrollment tasks and provided easy and fast communication between students and counselors. Third and finally, colleges ought to employ and train current students to be peer mentors to incoming freshmen, which would support these at-risk young people in ways professional counselors and recruiters cannot.

The book describes various contexts in which these strategies have been successful. The next step is to implement them on a larger scale. In all, Castleman and Page’s commonsense, proven solutions demonstrate that, for kids who are academically prepared for college, a little extra support can go a long way.

SOURCE: Benjamin L. Castleman and Lindsay C. Page, Summer Melt: Supporting Low-Income Students Through the Transition to College (Cambridge: Harvard Education Press 2014).