Who Is Best Qualified to Run a School System?

I know you have come to rely on the Bobcat Blog for your source of all things education! Since this is your first place to turn for these types of stories, I thought I would share an article that I read today and found interesting. I understand that the things that interest one person do not necessarily interest another, so some of you may not find this interesting. My reason for being drawn to this is pretty clear in the title. will admit that the topic may not interest everyone, but I found it very interesting.
On Wednesday I went and watched the new educational documentary "Waiting for Superman" that is currently playing at the Majestic. This movie deals with the current education system and why it is broken. This movie illustrates (as most books maintain) that change has to start at the top of any organization. Here is my question to the 18 readers (yes, the latest ratings are out and we have added 4 readers!) of this post - Does it matter the head of your school has teaching experience and graduate degrees in education/leadership?

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, left, appoints publishing executive Cathleen Black as chancellor of the city's school system.

Edward Reed / Office of Mayor Bloomberg / Sipa Press

What kind of credentials do you need to run a school district? Especially a really big one? Is a degree in education a better predictor of a superintendent's success than, say, a track record of turning around distressed companies? These are hot questions in the education world right now. Last week, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg surprised everyone (and that includes the senior leaders of his city's school system) by tapping publishing executive Cathleen Black to be the city's new school chancellor. By doing so, Bloomberg set in motion an arcane deliberation process. Because Black has not spent three years working in public schools — in fact, her only education leadership experience consists of serving on an advisory board for a charter school in Harlem — and because she also lacks the requisite 60 hours of graduate-school credits, she will need a waiver from the state in order to take charge of the city's 1,700 schools, 80,000 teachers and more than a million students.

It's understandable why some teachers and education advocates are objecting so vociferously to an outsider coming in to run such a massive system (though it should be noted that if the new chancellor pledged to undo the current reform efforts, many of these same people wouldn't care if Bloomberg had just hired Carrot Top as his new schools chief). If you've never worked in a school before, critics wonder, how can you oversee so many of them? But precisely because the New York district is so gargantuan, its chancellor needs a skill set far different from your average principal or teacher; the school system's annual budget of more than $21 billion exceeds the gross domestic product of nearly half the world's countries. Let me be clear, however, on two things: at this point, there's no way to tell if Black will be an effective leader of New York's mega-district. But what is lost in all the speculation about her is how outmoded — and counterproductive — American education's approach to credentials is in the first place. (See what makes a school great.)

After World War II, reformers saw credentials as a way to create prestige and respect for educators. An elaborate state-based and now quasi-national credentialing regime sprang up as a result. New York's rules about who can lead a school district are not unusual. Today's educators are obsessed with education degrees and credentials, regardless of the evidence about how useful they are in creating effective teachers or leaders.

Numerous studies as well as data from multiple states make clear that aside from people with absolutely no training at all, there is no appreciable difference in the classroom effectiveness of teachers entering the field through traditional or alternative routes. Despite the fetishizing of credentials, past classroom performance of teachers is actually the best predictor of future performance. Yet not only do most teachers still complete elaborate multi-year training, but the ones who choose more efficient routes — and thus do not have the "right" credentials — are barred from seeking jobs in most places. (Read "Teachers' $500 Billion (and Growing) Pension Problem.")

This week, in what could serve as a catalyst for reform, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the body that accredits teacher preparation programs, released a report (from a commission that I served on) calling for sweeping changes to how teachers are trained, including a greater focus on actual classroom experiences rather than education school courses. The report, which went so far as to call today's teacher-prep system "broken," could put a dent in this notoriously hidebound and outcomes-averse field. Right now, very few states even look at the classroom effectiveness of teachers produced by various state-approved preparation programs.

Meanwhile, the record of school leaders who come into education from other fields is mixed. Yet the same is obviously true of school leaders from within education — these jobs require a blend of managerial, political, and leadership skills, and not just anyone can succeed in these roles. However, as with teaching, there is no evidence that school leadership preparation programs or the elaborate credentialing requirements for school leaders have any impact on quality. (See pictures of homeschoolers.)

In a 2005 report, former Columbia University Teachers College dean Arthur Levine cataloged the problems with leadership preparation programs and called for a thorough overhaul. Chapters included "An Irrelevant Curriculum," "Low Admission and Graduation Standards," "Inadequate Clinical Instruction," "Inappropriate Degrees," and "Poor Research." Despite leading large and successful for-profit and non-profit ventures, this is the experience Black lacks.

One popular source of executive talent for school districts is the armed services. Yet in my admittedly unscientific sample of about a dozen former military leaders, their success or failure seems to have less to do with the rank they attained than what they actually did in the service. For instance, those who implemented big changes or captained a new kind of ship seemed to have an easier go of it than those who oversaw already established processes. (Comment on this story.)

Whether Cathie Black can transfer her considerable talent at change management to the New York City schools remains to be seen, but she's arguably as safe a bet as other leaders at that level — education insiders or not. And in such a complicated human-driven organization, no credential lessens the risk in a high-stakes leadership role.

It is, of course, worth noting that outgoing-Chancellor Joel Klein needed the same waiver Black does when he came to New York in 2002. And despite the controversy attendant to the kind of broad reforms he has undertaken, you'd be hard-pressed to find an objective analyst who doesn't think the city's schools are markedly better now than a decade ago — not only in terms of student outcomes, but basic operational and management issues as well. Meanwhile, like highly paid migrant workers, some of the big names in education merely move from one lousy school system to the next, leaving little improvement in their wake. At this level, leadership can't be boiled down to obvious boxes to check.

That's why questioning education's relentless focus on certifications is not the same as arguing that anyone can teach or lead a school. Though education is frequently compared to medicine, it is in fact more akin to journalism or business (or policy analysis), where a blend of credentials and past performance informs high-stakes hiring decisions. That's imperfect, too, but a better fit for an industry like education than today's slavish devotion to credentials.

Andrew J. Rotherham, who writes the blog Eduwonk, is a co-founder and partner at Bellwether Education, a nonprofit working to improve educational outcomes for low-income students. School of Thought, his education column for TIME.com, appears every Thursday.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2031772,00.html#ixzz15klXBcey

Is This Appropriate?

Last night Brainerd Baptist School hosted it's first Parent Workshop night. We fed all attendees dinner and then had 7 different topics dealing with parenting and education that parents could choose from. Over 100 parents attended and the responses have been very positive. Our desire for doing this is to partner with our parents as we help educate the great students that are entrusted to us each day.
My session dealt with what parents should be looking for in regards to technology. I had a few parents ask me to share my resources. The links provided below are what I shared with parents in my session.

• Covenant Eyes - A great resource for parents on information relating to what are children are dealing with, what parents should be looking for, and tools to help you manage those things. This website also does a great job of providing statistics on what students today are doing online. This is something all parents should be aware of.
  
• Safe Eyes - This is a Internet content filter that I highly recommend. It can also be used for time management, activity reports and many other things. In my session I told parents that it can be used on up to 5 computers. This is incorrect-it can now be used on 3 computers
• X3Watch - This is the website that provides accountability software. This software runs in the back ground and simply provides weekly documentation of any questionable Internet activity on the computer.
  
• Open DNS Family Shield - This is the filtering for your router that will protect all devices in your network including iPod Touch and Ninentdo DSi hand held devices that have Internet capability.

I hope you find these sites helpful. I strongly encourage ALL parents to begin filtering now. Do not wait until your children are older. Our own informal survey found that most BBS parents do not filter their Internet and very commonly responded, "We do not need this yet, but we will soon." Research shows that most children are first exposed to pornography on the web by the 4th grade! Why would you take the chance on your child being a statistic?

What is Your Learning Style?

We are one week away from our first ever Parent Workshop. We are getting excited about this special night and hope you are planning on spending a couple of hours learning how we can be better parents to our students. In one of our sessions, Mrs. Young, along with Mrs. Bookout will be going over the various learning styles that we see in our students. I thought I would see if you can guess which type of teaching would best reach this student. The lesson to be learned is that if you are not teaching to the specific learning style of your student, then frustration is either already a factor or soon will be!!!

This is David who is a K4 student in Mrs. Kell's class. Which learning style is he exhibiting in this video? I hope to see you Thursday night!

Why Is There No School Tomorrow?

I was asked this earlier today and realized that this would be a great way to explain the answer to this question in more detail. Although tomorrow has been scheduled as an in-service day since the calendar was first released last spring, I had more than one parent tell me that they did not realize that tomorrow was an in-service day. To help with this I asked students to remind their parents in announcements EVERY day last week. Of course we also posted it on our website, put it in Notes Home, and even sent a reminder email out about this to make sure that NO students showed up tomorrow morning to a dark school with no teachers!
This is the first time we have had an in-service day in the middle of a quarter since I have been head of school. The faculty of Brainerd Baptist School is actually attending the Tennessee Association of Independent Schools Biennial Conference. This is a unique opportunity that Brainerd Baptist School has not taken advantage of in several years. TAIS rotates the location of their conference between the cities of Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga. This means that once every 6 years our city has the privilege of hosting this event. The Baylor School is hosting the event this year and over 900 teachers from the 54 different schools are attending. Member schools are encouraged to send their entire faculties when the conference is held in our city. To this end, Brainerd Baptist joined with St. Peters, St. Nicholas, Baylor, Bright, Boyd Buchanan, Hickory Valley and other schools across the state to send our entire faculty to this event.
So why is it important that your child's teacher be at this event and not at school tomorrow? The mark of great school is it's faculty. The Brainerd Baptist School Board of Trustees is committed to investing in our faculty. We want every member of our faculty to show a commitment to continuous education. Your child's teachers spent today (Sunday) listening to Pat Bassett, president of NAIS speak about the future of education and then went to two breakout sessions dealing with topics that pertain to instruction. Tommorrow, they will hear another breakout session and then attend 4 breakout sessions on various topics. We also had 3 teachers who were selected to present at the conference as well. I hope this commitment to excellence excites you as your child's teacher learns ways to better instruct your child!