Matthew Lynch

Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, list, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

These 3 Advancements in Early Childhood Education Could Change Society

Even though education should begin as early as possible, there are only 15 states and the District of Columbia that require Kindergarten by law, and there are actually six states that do not even require public schools to offer Kindergarten. That is not to say anything about pre-K and preschool programs! Nonetheless, many schools and states across the nation are working to make early childhood education a priority. Here are three advancements in early childhood education that are simply game-changers for our society.

  1. Early childhood education in Michigan would slash the crime rate. By putting more money into early childhood education in Detroit, the crime rate would go down, according to a recent study.

Jose Diaz of the Amherst H. Wilder Foundation conducted the study “Cost Savings of School Readiness per Additional At-Risk Child in Detroit and Michigan” where the findings appear.  The research was commissioned by the Max M. and Marjorie S. Fisher Foundation and it suggests that investing in early childhood education could cut Detroit’s crime rate and save taxpayers in the state millions of dollars, according to a story on the study by The Detroit News. The story says that Detroit taxpayers would save around $96,000 for each child who was enrolled in a quality early education program and Michigan taxpayers would save $47,000 for each child.

The figure was derived from adding cost savings to special education, public assistance, childcare subsidies, the victims of crime and the criminal justice system. The majority of the savings would come from the criminal justice system.

These findings prompted Diaz and law enforcement officials to call on the Legislature to invest more dollars in early childhood education to help halt the alarmingly high crime rate in Detroit.

At the present time, only 4 percent of prisoners in Michigan under the age of 20 years old graduated from high school.

Learning begins at birth, which is why early education programs are so important. These programs provide an integral foundation for young minds and prepare children for success at school and in life. At-risk children who don’t receive high quality early education are more likely to drop out of school and more likely to be arrested for a violent crime.

I think investing in early childhood education programs is a cost-effective way to promote positive development of children and get to the root causes of high crime in the city. I hope that Detroit can see early childhood education as an initiative that could finally pay off and cut crime.

  1. More Native Americans could go to college with some early childhood investment. The Ké’ Early Childhood Initiative convenes today in Albuquerque and will bring together 45 representatives from four American Indian tribal colleges who will discuss strategies for better early childhood education and family involvement in the community.

The meeting is sponsored by the American Indian College Fund’s Early Childhood Education program which attempts to “strengthen the role of Native families in early learning opportunities, building culturally-responsive programming with families and tribal partners.” Specifically, the representatives will look at ways the American Indian community can better prepare children for long-term academic success, targeting learning opportunities from birth to 8 years of age.

In education circles, we talk a lot about the way black and Latino students struggle in K-12 classrooms through a combination of cultural circumstances and inequality. The reality is that American Indian K-12 students are the most at-risk of any minority group for either dropping out of high school or never making it to college. The American Indian Fund reports that American Indians who earn a bachelor’s degree represent less than 1 percent of all of these degree earners. It is not shocking then to realize that 28 percent of American Indians lived in poverty compared to 15 percent of the general population, according to 2010 U.S. Census figures. A college education opens doors for a higher quality of life.

The path to college starts long before the application process, of course.

Early childhood education has such an enormous impact on how students fare throughout their school careers. It’s the reason why President Obama has called on more states to implement universal preschool programs and has ushered more funding to Head Start and other early childhood education initiatives. There is a reason why an organization with “college” in the title is going back to early childhood to strengthen the potential of future students in the American Indian community. Better quality early childhood education, and families that are on board with supporting kids through the K-12 process, will lead to an uptick of interest in college degrees and a higher percentage of college graduates too.

  1. Vermont is set to receive $33.4 million for pre-K programs from the Education Department. Vermont has been awarded $7.3 million in what is anticipated to be a $33.4 million grant for pre-K programs at public schools and Head Start agencies across the state.

In 2014, President Obama announced that he is fulfilling his promise to expand early education for thousands of children with a $1 billion investment in programs for the country’s littlest students.

Vermont was one of 18 states awarded Education Department grants to create or expand high-quality preschool programs. A total of 36 states had applied for the money.

Governor Peter Shumlin announced, “This is great news for Vermont, our children and our economic future. Vermont is one of the top states in America when it comes to early childhood education, and we are committed to being the best.”

Last year, 28 percent of America’s four-year-olds were enrolled in state-funded preschool programs. The new $1 billion investment in learning programs is for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers in lower-income communities.

The education summit also highlighted a series of 60-second public service announcements that focus on various aspects of early childhood education. Actors Jennifer Garner and Julianne Moore and singers Shakira and John Legend all narrated a part and conclude with the tagline, “When we invest in them, we invest in us.”

I am thrilled about the $1 billion dollars that is dedicated towards early education and want to congratulate Vermont, as well as the other recipients of the grants. Of course I am an advocate for programs that help students of all ages, but I firmly believe focusing on our nation’s youngest students is irreplaceable.

What do you think an investment in early childhood education could do for our country?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Equity, HBCU's, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch,

Beyond Athletics: Three Other Ways to Recruit Minority College Students

We’ve all heard the fairytale stories before: a minority kid from a tough neighborhood gets a shot at a college career because he or she is recruited for a particular sport. Not only do these athletes get to show off their physical talent, but they get a college degree and a more promising future in the process. Listen, I’m all for athletes landing athletic scholarships if it means that more minority college students earn a college degree. But I also know that stories like these, while intentionally heartwarming and media friendly, do not represent the vast majority of minorities with college aspirations. Athletes get a lot of the attention, but if colleges and universities are truly committed to diverse populations of students then they need to put the steps in place to make it easier for all minorities to earn a college degree.

A few of the areas where I think universities could improve on minority programs and recruitment include:

Arts recruiting.

Just as scouts go out and recruit the best basketball or football players for teams, the same should happen with minority students who show promise in the arts. Theater, musical performance, sculpting, painting, film studies and even creative writing – minority students who have talent in these areas should be given attention and invited to college programs. Why arts programs over more practical careers in STEM or healthcare? Minority students with arts passions often feel forced to abandon them in favor of immediate jobs or things that are simply not their passions. Arts careers are considered “silly” for white peers, but almost irresponsible for minority students. This should change and colleges should take the lead on it.

Mentorship programs.

There are some minority students who come from a home where one or both parents are college graduates but those odds are lower than their white peers. All first-generation college students face different challenges and expectations than those for whom college acceptance, success and graduation has always been expected. During the recruiting process, colleges should tout their mentorships programs and make sure minority and first-generation students are aware of the support they will receive when they decide to attend. As much as possible, these mentorship programs should work on matching students based on race, gender and career industry – though aligning all of that is admittedly difficult. Using the same mentor for several students is an option. Particularly in the case of minority students, mentors are generally overjoyed to be able to help a young person succeed. Colleges just need to be asking for that help and then expressing that it exists to their potential minority students.

Creative financial aid.

College is expensive and for students who have to pay for it on their own while supporting themselves, it can be overwhelming. There are no shortage of loans that students can take out to help finance their college careers, but saddling them with debt before they even set foot in the work world can be a recipe for disaster. Colleges that truly want a diverse population of students who succeed after graduation should look into adding more minority scholarships. The “pay it forward” college payment system that is implemented in certain states like Oregon should be considered for wider adoption, especially when it comes to attracting minority and first-generation students to college campuses. College does not need to be completely free in order for more minorities to attend and graduate. It does need to be affordable, though, and that takes some thinking out the normal financial aid box.

Athletes who earn college degrees are certainly inspirational but they are only a small portion of the minorities who want the type of education a college or university can provide. If we really want equality on our college campuses then it will take more than touting the success of our minority football, basketball and track stars. We need to find ways to translate that same success across interests and disciplines, and to give those students the support they need to truly succeed. Part of that process is to make college more affordable for all students. Another piece of that puzzle is targeting areas that are often overshadowed by athletics, like the arts. By understanding the true picture of what potential minority college students are like, colleges and universities can get more of them on campus or enrolling online.

How do you think more minority college students can be recruited?

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Matthew Lynch published in Diversity, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch, OpEducation

Why Colleges Need Athletes as Minority Mentors

When it comes to getting more minorities into college, and then graduating them, there are a lot of different ideas out there. Stronger high school recruiting, better guidance programs for first-generation students, and more minority faculty members are just a few of the ways to make college campuses more diverse to the benefit and success of everyone.

Having strong minority role models as mentors is another, and perhaps the most powerful idea of them all. Successful people who look like the students a particular college or university is trying to graduate, and who come from a similar background, can leave a lasting impression and inspire students to similar heights.

One particular group of minority mentors that I feel should be getting even more involved in the minority recruiting and mentorship process are student athletes. Whether still athletes at the school, or alumni, this particular subset of minority mentors should play an important role in graduating other traditionally disadvantaged students.

Maurice Clarett as mentor

One great example of a college-athlete-turned-minority-mentor is The Ohio State University alum Maurice Clarett. The former college running back has taken on a new role as both a cautionary tale, and inspiration, to other young people. If his name sounds familiar, it is because his claim to fame was not just on the football field or as a national champion in the sport. Clarett served four years in prison for aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon. It was behind bars that he started reading up on personal development and ways to grow beyond a delinquent and even ways to rise above his association with being a football star.

Today he talks with other college athletes about things like personal responsibility and being accountable for actions, no matter what their upbringing. Clarett has visited athletes at Alabama, Notre dame, Tennessee and Mississippi State. He recently spoke with the national champion Florida State football team and acknowledged that many minority college athletes come from home environments that leave them “undeveloped” and without the skills needed to function successfully in life. Taking advantage of the resources available on college campuses and determining to be better than life’s circumstances are two lessons that Clarett tries to pass along to the people he mentors.

A story like Clarett’s is so much more powerful than the seemingly-empty warnings from adults on college campuses, many of whom look nothing like the students they are trying to influence and have no shared life experiences. By finding ways to tap into the stories of athletes, colleges can give their students a more impactful way of committing to success.

Mirroring smart mentorship

Traditionally getting into college on an athletic scholarship has been a way that minorities have been able to break onto college campuses, particularly if they came from educational environments that simply did not offer the same resources as advantaged peers. I’d argue that getting these athletes to graduation day is simply not enough; a whole other realm of life skills is needed to ensure that they are successful long after their athletic playing days have passed. When the cheers die down and the attention turns to the more practical things in life, these student athletes need ground to stand on. Pairing them up with mentors, or at the very least bringing in former athletes to share their after-college success stories, is a great way to inspire greatness that lasts a lifetime.

Leadership. Teamwork. Hard work. Earning a “win.” Losing gracefully. All of these are lessons that college athletes know in the context of their respective sports. Translating that to life beyond college can be challenging but can be made much easier with the help of mentors that have a common understanding with the students they address. Schools should make this as much a priority as recruiting minority students to sports and academic programs. Colleges and universities have a responsibility to their students to prepare them for all aspects of life and proper mentorship can be a necessary building block in that process.

How do you think colleges can best mentor minority students?

 

 

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Testing

4 Ways Common Core Teaches Life Skills

One of the loudest arguments against Common Core Standards is that they don’t apply to “real-life” situations and that their methods are too far removed from what actually happens in the workplace. It’s unfortunate that this argument is so prominent, because these standards were developed with the opposite intent.

Connecting the material that kids learn with the real world abilities they need to succeed is a foundational element of the internationally benchmarked standards. At the heart of Common Core is a recognition that students must be able to retain what they learn and that is accomplished by using real-life examples and applications.

Here are just a few of the ways that the transition to the standards and new Core-aligned assessments will teach life skills:

  1. Emphasis on the “how” of things. You can find the answer to anything by typing your question into a search engine box. Think about how often you rely on this technology to find answers to your everyday queries compared to the amount of effort you used to expend as a student before the Internet existed. Common Core puts an emphasis on the journey to finding answers, particularly when it comes to the math standards. It eliminates rote memorization and gives students the freedom to decide their own path to finding a correct answer.
  2. Computer-based test taking. When was the last time you did anything in your professional life that was handwritten? Even if you are in a business where you handwrite invoices, receipts or memos, technology likely comes into play with communications, bookkeeping and other day-to-day functions. We ask our high school students to complete assignments online, take college assessment exams online and even apply to college online. It makes sense to shift to a universal computer-based assessment model for our younger students, too. The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) test aligns with Common Core benchmarks using familiar technology that helps take away some of the test-taking anxiety, allowing students to focus solely on showing what they have learned. These new tests also require more writing and break away from the decades-old “fill in the bubble” multiple-choice format that focused on rote memorization rather than any true critical thinking.
  3. Better feedback. When you are on the job, your superiors do not wait until you’ve been promoted to review your strengths and weaknesses from the previous position. The end goal for tests like PARCC is to return answers to students in the year that the assessment is taken so it can have an impact on what they are learning in the present. Instead of reporting back to students on what they know, PARCC testing informs them about where they still need improvement in a timely way that allows that progress to take place more quickly.
  4. Discipline-specific writing skills. Despite the dominance of digital technology, more than ever, many jobs demand strong writing skills. Common Core standards address this growing need by calling for more rigorous reading, writing and critical thinking across subjects. It is not enough to simply know something—you must be able to communicate that knowledge. Common Core does not supplant or discount language arts instruction, but strengthens it through better connecting the practice of writing with the needs of employers today.

Students, parents and educators are discovering Common Core and hearing a great deal of conflicting information. One truth that should not get lost in the public debate is how the new standards promise to create a generation of K-12 students who are not only prepared for the world stage, but who excel on it.

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Matthew Lynch published in Higher Education, list, Matthew Lynch

5 Tips You Can Use to Become an Academic Entrepreneur

More and more academics are recognizing the potential to supplement their income from higher education positions with out-of-the-box projects and schemes. To try and get to grips with the so-called academic entrepreneur, I met with Shonell Bacon, Instructor of Mass Communication at McNeese State University.

In this article, you’ll see some of her tips on understanding the relationship between academia and entrepreneurship—and how you can marry the two concepts together to generate supplementary income.

  1. You can be an academic entrepreneur. Bacon defined “academic entrepreneur” as “someone who knows what their talents are and is able to capitalize on them. They are able to take those qualities that make them excel in the academic arena and apply them to additional revenue streams. They are not necessarily unique; they are just always looking for opportunities. They are broad thinkers with narrow goals and lanes to optimize success for those goals.
  2. The tools you find useful in the academy are also useful in your entrepreneurial ventures. Bacon said, “For me, the biggest advantage to this approach is how I use knowledge from these two worlds, academic and business, to better myself in both worlds. For example, outside of academia, I am an author and an editor. With both, I constantly use my creativity; my knowledge of grammar, structure, and organization; my ability to think outside the box to strengthen my own writing as an author and others’ writing as an editor. When I’m in the classroom, I bring these tools with me. When I’m considering academic research projects, I use my creative, my outside-the- box thinking to explore topics that on the surface might not seem as academic as other topics, but in the end, they are creative endeavors for me that satisfy their academic requirements.”
  3. Online tools and technology are your best friends. “I would probably say that higher education’s embrace of technology, especially with moving some classes online, allows for accommodating entrepreneurship into your career” Bacon said. The use of technology forces educators to think outside the box and figure out how to deliver the same quality education electronically. Bacon recalled her first foray into online teaching and remembered how teaching online made her consider how she might offer her expertise in other areas digitally.

“The minute I had to reconsider and think creatively about my teaching, those same reconsiderations came to me in regards to entrepreneurial endeavors. I also think about the ‘leisure learning’ style courses that are offered at most colleges and universities. Oftentimes, these courses enable academics to make a little money in activities outside of their academic work. For example, I’ve taught leisure learning classes in fiction writing, fiction workshop, and developing projects for submissions. These courses allowed me to blend my teaching qualities with those qualities often exhibited in my entrepreneurial activities. I also think that schools, such as University of Phoenix, those schools that offer credit for “life learning” and business activities and experience suggest that entrepreneurialism–the work we do outside of academia–is important.”

  1. Value your time. “Work doesn’t end because you leave your campus office. With working 60+ hours a week, sometimes more, academics often don’t have the time for entrepreneurial activities, especially if they want to have some life to live while also taking care of home and family. And that time affects them in another way, too, because you have to make time to think on the idea of entrepreneurship: what skills do I have as an academic? How might those skills be useful outside of academia? What non-academic skills do I have? How can I bridge these skills to develop real financial independence through entrepreneurial ventures? There has to be time taken to consider these questions and others before a person can even get to developing the success s/he wants.”
  2. Be part of the revolution. “I definitely think more academics will embrace entrepreneurship,” Bacon said when asked if more academics would become entrepreneurs. “One reason will be out of necessity, say for example, the need for additional money. But others will come to embrace it because we live in such a fluid, technological world where one person can seamlessly move in and through many identities at any one time. Technology, whether it’s the actual device, or the app, or the software, etc., enables us to branch into other arenas, and more academics can take part of entrepreneurship through technology. Because of technology and the ability for an academic to blend multiple identities simultaneously, the field will definitely not only emerge, but also expand. I definitely see this more so for the future as younger academics come into the landscape, particularly those who are digital natives, from birth living with Internet and the many other advances of technology.”

We would like to thank Shonell for sitting down with us.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Equity, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Diverse Conversations: Current Issues in Higher Education

With each passing decade, colleges and universities are faced with the task of responding to the spirit of the times. Those that deal with these trends and issues proactively often receive great rewards. However, those that do not keep up with the times face an uncertain future and in extreme cases, failure. Recently, I spoke with Dr. Helen F. Giles-Gee to discuss some of the current issues in higher education and how colleges and universities should respond to them.

Dr. Helen F. Giles-Gee began her tenure as the 22nd president of University of the Sciences on July 16, 2012. A well-respected and nationally-known scholar, educator, and administrator, she brings more than 30 years of experience in higher education to the campus.

Q: What are the major challenges facing American colleges and universities?

A: American colleges and universities are facing many challenges. I’ll name just 10: (1) Diversifying revenue streams to adjust to government divestment in higher education; (2) Enrolling a more diverse college bound population, some of whom may be ill prepared for college-level work; (3) Informing the Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act, which impacts federal student aid (student affordability), fundraising opportunities because of expiring tax provisions and more; (4) Greater accountability at state and federal levels for student learning outcomes such as increasing retention and graduation rates and student academic achievement; (5) Increased competition with other colleges that are becoming entrepreneurial in their academic program development and/or are utilizing new ways to assess students’ prior learning now paid for using federal financial aid; (6) Addressing the new credentialing of competencies that may make the “credit hour” irrelevant; (7) Forecasting capital plant needs with a changing delivery market for higher education; (8) Maintaining good community relations when balancing the desire by some cities and towns for tax revenues from nonprofits; (9) Addressing risk and compliance issues associated with needs for additional security, greater internationalism and resulting visa needs, greater sensitivity to complaints of sexual harassment, whistleblowers, and other possible personnel issues; and (10) Supporting the K through 12 pipeline regarding student academic achievement by strengthening teacher education programs and their outcomes.

Q: In what areas do American colleges and universities need the most help?

A: With decreasing college bound populations, greater competition from an increased number of colleges and universities, and fewer government subsidies for financial aid, having tuition and fees as the predominant source of revenue is a recipe for disaster. Colleges with fewer than 4,000 students are especially fiscally vulnerable as they need the same core operations as larger colleges unless they possess very great endowments with payouts that contribute high percentages to operations. Small institutions that still try to “go it alone” without considering joining consortia or merging with another institution may see their coffers empty sooner rather than later. Some institutions may need assistance in considering appropriate strategies to diversify their revenues and contain costs.

Q: What is the current enrollment of University of the Sciences? What is a realistic projection of enrollment over the next five years?

A: University of the Sciences’ current enrollment is about 2,800 students. With a mission of educating students for healthcare professions, sciences and mathematics, and management and health policy, USciences aims to stay small in size and focused in its program offerings. The majority of our programs are in fields that are highly desirable by employers with 94% of students graduating in 2012 having jobs or admitted into graduate programs within six months of graduation. We currently provide three online full programs in biomedical writing, and expect to see enrollment growth occurring in new specialized online programs that are in sync with our mission.

Q: What is the approach to recruiting new students? What challenges do you face in attracting students to the school?

A: We are increasingly informing new students about our value and distinctiveness. Our strengths include: a small faculty to student ratio; an urban location amidst other great universities; collaborations with great universities and research institutes on research and academic programs; student/faculty research opportunities that result in presentations and/or publications; great possibility for graduate work; clinical practice in sites across the country; faculty who are esteemed in their fields; reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship as documented by graduates like Eli Lilly, Robert L. McNeil Jr., and others.

We are also increasing our articulations with surrounding schools and community colleges. As Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, we were the first college of pharmacy in North America. When academic programs expanded to include degrees in science as well as professional doctorates in occupational therapy and physical therapy, our name changed to Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Sciences and later to University of the Sciences. Name recognition has been a challenge that we are overcoming with greater media exposure and publicizing the positive outcomes of a USciences education.

Q: What is the graduation rate at the University of the Sciences now?

A: The six year graduation rate for the 2006 cohort is 74%. We are instituting new retention efforts and expect to see this percentage increase.

Q: Do you have any parting messages for our readers, many of whom are our current and future presidents?

A: This era calls for presidents who can lead institutions to develop tactics that effectively address new problems and who can educate boards to a changing higher education landscape. We will need to develop collaborative models within our institutions as well as with external partners. I am both humbled and challenged by the many new issues we face while knowing that when we succeed at improving higher education our students and our world will be the better for it.

Well, that concludes my interview with President Giles-Gee. I would like to thank her for taking time out of her busy schedule to speak with me.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch

Empowering Leadership Behavior in Schools: Lessons Learned from the Business Sector

Empowering leadership behavior includes encouraging of self-reward systems, self-leadership, opportunity awareness, participation in goal setting, and independent behavior by followers and group members. In other words, it’s all about helping followers take ownership of their positions, toward the greater good of the organization. And, as studies have shown, the effects are often positive and far-reaching.

Empowering leaders, through positive emotional support and encouragement, increases motivation and confidence among subordinates as they set out to accomplish their individual and organizational goals. Therefore, empowering leadership can be quite useful, particularly as a behavioral tactic for entrepreneurs, who must gain commitment from those they work with in order to compete against bigger, more established, and resource-rich enterprises.

Additionally, empowering leadership behavior in entrepreneurs is crucial in dynamic environments. Entrepreneurs attempting to lead their ventures toward higher growth while operating in ever-changing conditions can benefit from adopting an empowering leadership style. It is an effective way to distribute leadership throughout the management team. This enhances the shaping of emerging strategy, which harnesses the individual talents of each team member that are most relevant to the current situation.

However, there are some negative effects that come with empowering leadership, which are often left out of leadership literature. One of the disadvantages of empowering diverse teams is that it can be counterproductive. Empowering leadership can cause incompatibility among certain innovative enterprises.

In addition, empowered management teams tend to seek out too much information before making decisions. They may also attempt to follow too many opportunities, without refining a single business concept to establish a solid basis in the market. These challenges more often occur in experienced firms with diverse top management teams.

Diverse teams can be quite effective at considering multiple alternatives and making sense of challenging situations, but they are much slower to reach agreement on decisions. Different perspectives within top management teams can produce conflict, slowing the decision-making process.

We can conclude that empowering management teams can provide greater opportunity for conflicts to emerge. Conflicts among team members are likely to be particularly damaging to ventures operating in dynamic environments, where decision-making must be speedy in order to take advantage of the brief windows of opportunity . Entrepreneurs should be cautious about when and where to empower their management teams.

In fast-changing environments, empowerment reduces the new enterprise’s performance, causing the relationship between the management team’s diversity and the new venture’s performance to become increasingly negative. In more stable industry environments, this kind of empowerment leadership behavior is more likely to have a positive effect on the performance of new ventures with non-uniform top management teams . This is because the information available is clearer and there is more time available for planning.

Stable environments allow the empowered top management teams to spend more time considering what alternative strategies are available, and exploring the potential for various innovative activities, since total agreement is not urgent. As a result, there is generally less conflict within empowered diverse teams operating in stable environments.

School leaders seeking effectiveness should learn from entrepreneurs, and particularly those from start-ups in fast-moving industries, which tend to be highly creative. They should strive to create environments in which positive ideas are encouraged, and in which there is ample opportunity for those ideas to be put in place.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, list, Matthew Lynch

4 Transformational Leadership Practices That Motivate Teachers

The emotions of teachers are an often ignored, but very important part of a school’s learning climate. With each decision or policy they put in place, school leaders have an effect on the emotions of their teachers. Transformational leadership practices that have emotional consequences reflect four sets of “core practices” for effective leadership. These practices form a major part of what most successful school leaders do, in many different organizational and cultural contexts. Here are four core practices that keep teachers excited to come to work every day.

  1. Direction-setting. The practices of school leaders geared at building an inclusive sense of purpose in the school, and a grasp of the specific goals often leads to success, and broader school purposes are also accomplished. Most successful school leaders set higher expectations for their own performance as well as those of their teaching staff and students.
  2. Focusing on helping teachers improve professionalism. The development of teachers’ capacities includes most of the principal practices that influence teachers’ feelings. These practices include: being genuinely friendly, considerate, supportive, attentive to teachers’ ideas, and mindful of teachers’ welfare. School leaders who provide individualized consideration and learning opportunities build the teachers’ need to accomplish their own goals as well as those of the school. Success in building capacity is also achieved by reducing distractions to instructional work, as well as modeling values and practices that are aligned with the teachers’ core purpose.
  3. Redesigning the organization. This entails building a culture that is supportive and collaborative in teaching and learning, and creating and sustaining school structures that complement such a culture. In this context, successful principals nurture productive relationships with parents and the entire community, to influence future policies and prevent situations that might affect the school.
  4. Managing the instructional program. This aspect of leadership basically requires instructional knowledge. It includes efforts by school leaders to ensure that their schools have highly competent staff, to observe the progress of students and the school improvement, to monitor teachers’ instructional practices, and to provide supportive, helpful feedback to their staff.

Based on the extensive research carried out in both educational and non-school contexts, it is evident that emotionally responsive practices are closely associated with social assessment abilities. These abilities enable one to appreciate the emotional states of others, find out what those states entail in complex social situations, respond in helpful ways, and manage one’s own emotions.

Transformational leaders are known for their emotional capabilities and are prepared to include it in their professional life, despite the fact that it may involve breaking the traditions of professional culture and norms to maintain and repair relationships. They realize that building trusting relationships is vital for a cooperative culture.

References

Transformational leadership is a theory of leadership that was developed by James Burns (1978), and has been written about by many other scholars since then. To read more of James Burns’ work on transformational leadership and other topics, click here to visit his Amazon.com page.

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Matthew Lynch published in Ask An Expert, Diversity, Matthew Lynch, Teachers

6 Ways to Create a Culture of Learning

When schools make a positive change in the academic performance of their students, they are often led by highly involved and active school leaders. This doesn’t mean that administrators are in the classrooms putting their skills to use. Surprisingly, research shows that the best way for school leaders to be effective at improving academic performance in students is to create a culture of learning throughout the school environment. Creating a culture of learning is possible for every school. Here are six ways that administrators can foster an educationally enriching environment.

  1. Start with a Mission

The mission of the school as crafted by the administration is the most influential contribution – more than hands on classroom participation or higher level advocacy. That doesn’t just mean creating a mission statement, rather it means an active implementation of that mission statement that shapes the school environment to create a place that fosters learning from every level. A school’s mission is the key tool for administrators in the pursuit of academic excellence. Once a strong mission has been created, then it should be discussed and broken down with every stakeholder in the school community, allowing everyone to realize its importance and to see how it guides the culture of the school environment.

  1. Communicate Effectively

People can’t do what you’re asking of them if they’re not clear on your expectations. In schools that have a culture of learning, administrators clearly express the ways that they want their policies and educational methodologies to be implemented. Of course are still questions, but these are largely clarifications that are based upon the prior information that’s been given to staff. Administration shouldn’t wait until information is requested, but rather should preemptively offer what they find to be most important. In addition, it’s important that when questions and clarifications do come up, that the administration is open to improvement rather than rigid.

  1. Implement Strong Policy

The impact of administration on the outcomes of student learning is a significant one. Administrators shape the school’s vision – the big picture of the educational environment, through the policies that are implemented throughout the school. That means creating policy that fosters rather than inhibits learning in students, and which views everything through the lens of education. Discipline is of value only when it’s part of the educational process. Schedules are structured to promote academic performance. Non-academic activities are recognized for their enriching role in the academic process, and fostered appropriately. When principals are consistent in their articulation AND execution of the school’s objectives, then support their staff in the carrying out of those solidly founded policies, we see students grow academically in meaningful ways.

  1. Be an Active Presence

Administrators who sit in their offices are not able to effectively lead their staff and students. In order to create a culture of learning, administration has to be a visible presence in the hallways and in the classroom, interacting with students and staff in a way that reinforces the mission statement and implemented policies. That means not just walking the halls or performing disciplinary actions, but rather looking to further reinforce educational ideas in meaningful ways.

  1. Provide Resources

In these times of tight budgets, when we think of resources, we tend to immediately think of school supplies. But resources are so much more than that. Administrators themselves are resources, and when they’re highly visible it’s offering something important to students and teachers. Incentives that aren’t tied to the budget can be an important driver for teachers and students, think about school wide competitions or perks that can be provided. Perhaps the biggest resource that administrators can offer is time: instructional time, planning time, down time. There are never enough hours in the school day, but how those hours are structured can make a huge difference in the amount of time that teachers have at their disposal.

  1. Guide Instruction

When school goals are coordinated with curriculum, then it is possible to raise student performance through more codified and effective instruction across the school environment. What’s perhaps most surprising here is that it is NOT hands on implementation of the school’s vision that affords the most value to students. It’s not about administration directly implementing instructional programs, or even directly creating them. Rather it is when administrators create a vision for learning that they then trust their skilled teachers to implement. The framing of educational and academic goals that is the most effective offering of administrators in the pursuit of higher levels of performance in students. Administrators can effectively create positive academic outcomes for students by promoting the mission of the school with academic standards, timetables and academic curricula.

Administrators indirectly influence student learning, though powerfully so. These practices foster academic growth in students across socioeconomic and cultural boundaries. Again, notice that none of these involve hands on classroom interventions on the part of administrators, but all foster a structured environment that’s focused on student learning – a school culture of learning.

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch

7 Things that Schools Can Learn from Entrepreneurs

When school administrators are looking for places to find inspiration, one rich source of knowledge is the world of entrepreneurship. There is so much that can be gleaned from the successful pursuits of entrepreneurs that educators would do well to have a look at the techniques used as they seek innovation and success.

Here are seven things that schools can learn from entrepreneurs.

Drive has been the main focus of many research studies, and has been described as “the will to conquer” and “the joy of creating and of getting things done.” While these phrases accurately describe an entrepreneur’s zeal to succeed, they can also accurately apply to the educational arena, where that same spark of fire to get things done is often at the heart of the mission. Educators are compelled by a deep seeded need to change the world, and school leaders must both feel this same drive themselves and also harness it in their followers.

The need for entrepreneurs to show leadership stems from the fact that they are founders of their ventures and, as such, there are no established standard operating procedures or even organizational structures that they can fall back on while starting from scratch. This is the main difference between entrepreneurs and corporate managers, since the latter often have more well-defined goals, objectives, structures, and work procedures to guide them. Too often, educators fall into the trap of becoming corporate managers and are wary of stepping out into innovation. But innovation is how change happens! If the school environment isn’t working towards the goals of educating its students, then it’s time to make substantive, fresh and exciting changes. Unlike entrepreneurs, educators have to jolt themselves into innovation.

Another attribute of entrepreneurs is the ability to lead their business and to be able to allocate resources. So too must leaders in education be able to lead their schools and to allocate resources. The difficulty here is that, while entrepreneurs and schools both face the same tight budgets, schools live with the knowledge that there will be always be a baseline of funds available. Again we come to the innovation that entrepreneurs bring to the table, but this time in the light of resource allocation. Educators must be creative with the limited resources at hand, and must be willing to work diligently to figure out how to squeeze each dollar out in the most effective way. They would do well to learn from entrepreneurs who face the loss of a business for failed resource allocation rather than simply waiting another year for new funds from the state.

Entrepreneurs are required to observe and interpret labor market changes to position their enterprises as players in the market. Schools don’t always realize it, but they’re facing those same labor market changes and would do well to make the application and recruitment process as attractive as possible through outreach and communication, just as entrepreneurs must do. For both educators and businesspeople, getting the right people is THE key to success.

Research has shown that the information and communication strategies within a business are strong determinants of service quality and the organizational culture. Entrepreneurial leaders therefore have to carefully conceptualize and implement practical channels and instruments of communication if they are to achieve meaningful results. This same thing is true for educators. Accurate and effective communication are essential factors in employee retention and happiness, and can help schools to keep those good staff members around.

It has been proven again and again that satisfied employees in business enterprises increase customer satisfaction. In education, satisfied teachers and staff increase educational outcomes for students. This is why leadership tasks should include workplace design and implementation of some sort of reward and incentive scheme that is geared toward improving teacher’s service. Administrators have their hands tied in the case of monetary compensation, but there are other opportunities for educators to create effective incentives for staff through innovation and partnership. Empowerment for educators comes from their sense that they are heard and valued members of their school community.

A school setting with a traditional top-down, heavy-handed approach to management does not generally have the structures in place to listen to new ideas. An entrepreneur is on the other hand open to all new ideas, regardless of how out of the box they might seem. The biggest threat facing any company is the failure to open the doors to the creativity that’s right there in house. The same is true for a school environment. Instituting a policy of being open to any and all ideas, no matter how far afield they might be, is perhaps the greatest lesson that schools can learn from the entrepreneurial world.

The entrepreneurial spirit and the educational spirit are two sides of the same coin, with each having the same necessity of innovation, creativity and open mindedness in order to create success.

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