Matthew Lynch

Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch

The Eight Principles of Ethical Leadership in Education

While there has always been a requirement for ethics in leadership, the last hundred years have seen a shift in the paradigm of leadership ethics. Leadership for the 21st century is grounded in moral and ethical virtues, but the challenge is to define what exactly moral and ethical virtues are and how they should be measured and implemented. What qualifies as ethical in the educational context? What character traits are associated with ethical leadership? What is the application of leadership ethics within the U.S. school setting?

George Marshall’s Eight Principles of Ethical Leadership offer a strong scaffold for administrators who seek guidance on how to implement ethical practices in their schools. These principles add to the significant conversation about ethical leadership happening within the educational community, and in fact across the public domain. Ethics are a key domain in public administration, in particular, the school setting thanks to the vast number of schools in the United States, their community integration, and their importance for society as a whole.

Read on to learn about how the Eight Principles of Ethical Leadership can be effectively applied to the school environment.

  1. Personal Courage – While it seems that the challenges that schools are facing increase by the day, it’s still the case that in order to create a positive educational environment, administrators must be willing to stand up against policies that they feel are not helpful for their students, rising against both local, state and national interests as needed. Dissenting opinions are must essentially be expressed, even in the face of the administrators own superiors.
  2. Public Interest Ahead of Self – What is best for students and staff must be placed ahead of the needs of the individual leader. In this case the public interest is understood to be the interest of the school community, and the stakeholders therein. Their opinions and needs should always precede the self interests of the school leader.
  3. Self Control, Self Discipline and Integrity – All types of leadership essentially include these three traits in order to be considered ethical . Followers in the wider community look to leaders in all capacities, and as such, it’s necessary for leaders to be a positive role model and force in the lives of the stakeholders. Relationships between leaders and followers should not rely too heavily on trust, but rather should be built on mutual respect and ethical actions.
  4. Task and Employee Centeredness – School leaders must create a foundation of success that draws from the strengths of the teachers and staff who interact with students. Successful school leaders focus on both the needs of students and the needs of staff when they make decisions. The key is balancing energy between the current task while also creating unity by building on the varied needs of students and teachers.
  5. Recognizing Talent – Ethical leaders recognize the talent of their followers. This means that administrators identify both staff and students who display the qualities of excellence and then go on to recognize and promote those individuals in ways that create goodwill among all of the members of the school community. The other side of recognizing talent is maximizing it – so placing people where they’re talents are most useful to everyone. This affords opportunities to both individuals and to the organization as a whole.
  6. Requiring High Ethics From Everyone – Administrators need not only concern themselves with their own ethical standards but also with the ethical standards of others in their organization. That includes not only teachers and staff, but extends to students and parents. These standards must be communicated clearly and enforced without exception in order to be effective.
  7. Sensitivity and Understanding – This applies to the political, social and economic environment of the stakeholders in the school settings. Sensitivity and understanding are necessary in order to practice equity among members of the school community. One of the most challenging areas of the ethical picture, this practice must be implemented through educational as well as institutional policies.
  8. Inclusiveness – A sense of belonging is key to gaining trust within an organization, and trust a driving factor in success in any context but most especially within the educational context. Inclusiveness requires that all stakeholders be brought into process of making and implementing decisions. Consideration of, and respect for, members of the organization has been shown to motivate followers and lift morale, thereby increasing school performance and effectiveness.

When school leaders follow these eight points of ethical consideration, they are far more likely to gain a higher degree of success in their school environment. Schools are uniquely charged with not only affecting the people who walk through their doors every day, but the transitory nature of the population means that administrators and staff have that much more of a responsibility to execute their jobs ethically. Solid ethical practices are inspiring to followers, earning respect for instructional authority and leading by example.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, list, Matthew Lynch

3 Critical Questions We Must Ask about the K-12 Online Learning Trend

Online learning is more than a fad. The facts are staggering: According to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, there are nearly 1.9 million K-12 enrollments in online courses every school year, up from under 50,000 in 2000. The current number does not even include students enrolled in primarily online schools. Thirty-one states have full-time online schools that serve on a statewide basis.

But is this trend, quickly becoming a permanent feature of our education, a positive one? Here are three questions to ask to determine whether online learning is changing the quality of education for the better or for the worse.

  1. Do online courses really adequately prepare you for college? The top reason that districts give for offering online options is for credit recovery, with 81 percent of urban schools citing this reason. Are online courses really equal to ones in the classroom though? It really depends who you ask. Recent news reports out of California show that high school graduation rates are at an all-time high of 78 percent, with even higher numbers in areas like San Francisco and San Jose. While some educators use these numbers to point to student success, critics say the rise in graduation numbers does not necessarily mean that students are college ready. The rise of online courses as a means to “make up” failed or incomplete classes are part of the reason more kids graduate – but do they know what they should?
  2. How rigorous are online courses? This is likely a cloudy area for those of us who grew up before the Internet forever changed the face of distance education. On a basic level, if a student reads the material, and is able to give correct answers on a test, that means he or she has “learned” the content. When an educator takes into account other influential factors like learning style, intelligence and work ethic, that basic definition becomes murky. The general consensus in the education community seems to be that even though online courses have merit, they are less rigorous than classroom settings.
  3. Is making online learning mandatory in high school a good thing? Then there is the issue of online learning as an overarching ideology. Embracing the inevitability that online learning is a very real part of the average college education, the state of Florida began requiring in 2011 that high school students in the 24-credit graduation option to take at least one online course. The public, Internet-based Florida Virtual School leads the way in this innovation and is considered a national leader in the e-Learning model. So in this example, Florida is not simply offering online courses as a backup; the state mandates that students on a college prep path get early exposure to the type of learning they are likely to see in college.

Simply put, there are two very different ways to look at online courses in K-12 education. On one hand, there is educational merit, though that education is debatable as to the actual extent of its effectiveness. On the other hand, there is the practicality aspect of exposing students to online learning long before the college years. The second point paints online learning as a life skill of sorts – something for kids to understand before entering the real world as adults, much like balancing a bank account or learning how to create a resume.

Regardless of the limitations of online learning, those who oppose K-12 online courses are just wasting their breath. The momentum of online learning is gaining speed. Educators can best spend their time looking for ways to enhance the content of what is offered in virtual courses and making the most of what classroom time is available.

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Matthew Lynch published in EdTech & Innovation, list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

8 Ways to Rescue Public School Libraries from Becoming Obsolete

Public school libraries have always served an admirable purpose in education. In an indirect way, K-12 libraries have given students support in learning endeavors and been a go-to spot for information. With that being said, as the first Internet-generation rises through the public school ranks, libraries need big changes to remain relevant. It is not enough to simply “be there;” school libraries need to reach out to students and pull them in with helpful resources that combine traditional and contemporary theories in literacy.

Many school libraries are already making strides to capture and maintain the interest of students, while others seem to always be trailing just a few steps behind. Programs like the YOUmedia initiative housed at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library incorporate student-led publishing, music as a form of literacy and encouragement in academic pursuits to keep K-12 kids interested in what the library can do for them. Though YOUmedia does not take place in a public school, the open access to urban students and push towards literacy through technology are applicable to school settings.

Public school libraries need to grab the ever-divided attention of these youth. Here is what they need to achieve just that:

  1. Unbiased, and unlimited, access to information. This is at the core of every K-12 library’s purpose. All students have a level playing field when it comes to obtaining information and learning.
  2. Catalyst for social change. In their own quiet ways, school libraries have provided progressive thought through the materials they have provided over the years. Long before Internet search engines reigned supreme, students were able to research what they wanted in private, without fear of retaliation. Providing access to a wide variety of information has made school libraries an important piece in forward thinking.
  3. Safe oasis. School libraries have always afforded students a quiet, safe place for extracurricular meetings and studies. They have also given teachers a place to escape or quietly prepare for classes without unnecessary distractions. Students and teachers do not have to answer for themselves in a library setting, but can take some quiet time to get ready for what comes next.
  4. Community space. Most school libraries have several areas that can serve numerous purposes. Extracurricular clubs, planning committees or just friends who want to study together can meet in school libraries and have the space needed to accomplish tasks.
  5. Digital access. Instead of blocking websites or banning mobile devices from within library walls, schools should be finding ways to take part in the digital side of students’ lives. This goes beyond e-book offerings and extends to things like mobile apps and permission-based email reminders of upcoming school library events.
  6. Remote access. Students should have the ability to tap into school library resources off campus. The most basic necessity is an online card catalogue that is browser-based so students can look for what they need any time of day and from any location. Remote access may also mean digitizing archival photos and documents so students can access them from home and use the information in reports and other assignments. There is certainly something to be said of visiting the physical library for learning purposes, but without instant, remote options, students will bypass any help the school library provides in favor of a more convenient route.
  7. Life skills development. Libraries should not simply hand out books, but should take a vested interest in what the information contained means for long-term student success. School libraries should not just act as a support system to other life skills initiatives, but should create their own opportunities to guide students.
  8. Live events. A great way to earn the attention of contemporary students is to engage them in literacy in a live, personal way. This might mean inviting an author for a book reading or bringing in a local celebrity to discuss a book or media trend. School library staff should not be intimidated by geography; technology has made it possible to host these live events via Skype or other video software.

Libraries of the Future:

Experts agree that a blend of foundational values and access through technology are paramount to school library success. Library expert Doug Johnson says that all libraries have three primary responsibilities in the coming decade: providing “high touch environments in a high tech world;” offering virtual services; and standing ground as uber information hubs. Rolf Erikson is the author of Designing a School Library Media Center for the Future and he says that he is very “wary” of tradition because he feels it has kept administrators and library faculty from embracing innovation in the past. He believes that especially at the elementary school level, future libraries need to look beyond mere text materials to provide a learning space, not simply a “warehouse space.”

There is really no reason why school libraries should fear competing sources of information. With the right adjustments, K-12 libraries can work alongside the rest of the data that students access on a daily basis. Remaining relevant is simply a matter of carrying foundational ideals forward and adapting to an ever-changing information culture.

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Matthew Lynch published in list, Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform, Teachers

4 Ways to Find (and Keep) the Best Teachers

When it comes to school reform, we often think of getting rid of bad teachers. However, an issue that is possibly more pressing is hiring, training the best teachers. School districts continuously engage in the complementary processes of recruiting and retaining teachers. The strain on school budgets impacts the ability of school districts to hire and sometimes to retain high quality teachers. There are steps that every school and district can take, however, to strengthen its staff no matter what the financial situation. We will soon discuss a few ways to do this, but first, let’s look at why teachers leave their profession.

Why do teachers give up?

The highest proportion of new teachers in any given year is female, with White women accounting for higher numbers than women in ethnic minority groups. There is evidence, however, that in the early 1990s the number of new minority educators increased. No matter what their gender or ethnicity, teachers show a similar trend in high turnover and drop-out rates, both in their early years of teaching and when nearing retirement, producing a pattern related to age or experience.

Higher attrition rates have been noted in Whites and females in the fields of science and mathematics, and in those who have higher measured academic ability. Location of teaching position also impacts mobility and attrition rates. Most studies show that suburban and rural school districts have lower attrition rates than urban districts. Public schools, on average, actually have higher teacher retention rates than private schools.

Teachers are looking for increased salaries, greater rewards, and improved working conditions. Educators tend to transfer to teaching or even non-teaching positions that meet desired criteria. These findings suggest teacher recruitment and retention is dependent on the desirability of the teaching profession in relation to other opportunities. The inherent appeal of teaching depends on “total compensation” which compares the total reward from teaching, both extrinsic and intrinsic, with possible rewards determined through other activities.

Schools with high percentages of minority students and urban schools are harder to staff, and teachers tend to leave these schools when more attractive opportunities become available. Certain factors, which can apparently be influenced by policy change, may affect individuals’ decisions to enter teaching, as well as teachers’ decisions to transfer within or leave the profession.

Now, with all that explained, let’s look at four ways to find and keep the best teachers in schools in an era when teacher turnover is high:

  1. Pay more, and pay ethically. This is pretty simple. Not surprisingly, higher salaries are associated with lower teacher attrition, while dissatisfaction with salary is associated with higher attrition and a waning commitment to teaching.

The traditional system, whereby teachers are paid based solely on their years of experience and level of education, has caused many critics to claim that it does not promote good teaching, or is not as fair as other systems that pay based on performance, ability in certain skills, or willingness to teach in areas of high need. On the other hand, proponents of the traditional system argue that teachers’ experience and education are crucial indicators of their performance, and that because of its open and fair assessment it is the only logical choice. To reach an optimum balance, educators and policymakers have created numerous methods for revising how teachers are compensated, each seeking to adjust teacher incentives differently.

As the scientific evidence on these methods’ effectiveness is extremely limited, it is difficult to choose among them. Historically, implementing any pay reform, let alone directing a critical study of one, has been a demanding issue. A number of ambitious and interesting reforms have folded, often within a few years, under opposing political pressure or from fiscal restrictions. Attempts to study the few surviving reforms have yielded little usable data to date.

  1. Create a support system for new teachers. Lower turnover rates among beginning teachers are found in schools with induction and mentoring programs, and particularly those related to collegial support. Teachers given greater autonomy and administrative support show lower rates of attrition and migration. Aside from higher salaries, better working conditions and intrinsic rewards are the most important factors for teachers.
  2. Recruit teacher candidates from alternative teacher education programs as well as traditional teacher training programs. Literature on the influence of preservice policies on teacher recruitment and retention are limited, however there are two important points that should command attention of school districts. One of the recommendations of the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future in its report, What Matters Most: Teaching for America’s Future was that teachers be licensed based on demonstration of knowledge and skills.

This edict led states and teacher education programs to require teachers to pass a battery of tests before they exited teacher education programs and/or before they were licensed by states. These actions resulted in a reduction of the number of minority students entering and completing teacher education programs. Therefore school districts seeking more diverse teaching staffs will see a limited number of minority candidates available for recruitment.

A second pre-service teacher policy districts should look at is the difference between candidates completing traditional teacher education programs and those completing alternative route programs. Teacher candidates completing alternative route teacher education programs tend to be older and more diverse. Further, they tend to have higher retention rates than candidates completing traditional programs. Recruiting teacher candidates from these programs could address both the needs for more diverse teaching staffs and the desire to retain good teachers.

  1. Districts: pay attention to what teachers want.

Districts wanting to retain their best teachers should strongly consider what matters to teachers who remain in their teaching positions. Mentoring and induction programs tend to matter to in-service teaches, as does class size, autonomy, and administrative support. It is also interesting to note that state accountability practices also impact teachers’ decisions to remain in their positions.

Financial circumstances notwithstanding, districts have control over some of these issues. They should consider publicizing situations favorable to in-service teachers, as a tool for both recruitment and retention. As districts develop their reform agenda, they should put at the forefront a vision for the type of teaching force needed to support their plans for reform, and use empirical studies as a guide to recruit and retain teachers.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

The Role of Public Schools in the Advancement of the Communities

Public schools can play a significant role in the general improvement of their respective communities, and can operate as a major platform for enhancing child welfare in the community. Social reformers, politicians, and educational leaders have utilized various initiatives in the past to strengthen the relationship between schools and communities to achieve the common purpose of improving child welfare, and learning conditions for all children.

These initiatives suffer obstructions similar to those experienced by schools when they are focused on the work of educating. Detrimental poverty, racial and ethnic differences, socioeconomic differences, inactive families, low or no parental involvement, and insufficient political willingness and support for improvement all impact the efforts to advance the welfare of children. Any of these factors may obstruct the learning process of a child, and also may make it difficult to enhance the child’s overall well-being.

Historically, schools have played a significant role in helping communities evaluate issues concerning child welfare and eliminating situations that impede children’s progress. During the Great Migration of 1880–1924, a huge number of impoverished children moved into the schools of American cities. The majority of immigrants were poor and undereducated.

Social reformers and policy makers pressured public schools to work toward improving children’s lives. Many schools devoted themselves not only to educating poor children, but also to providing them with proper nutrition and other amenities required for healthy living. Teachers devoted their time to teaching English to immigrant students. Many schools offered non-academic services, including school nurses, gyms, playgrounds, and mid-time meals or lunches for poor students.

Some schools also started offering night classes for parents to help them learn English and other important parental skills that could assist them in caring for their children. Many schools encouraged teachers to improve school-parental ties by visiting students’ homes and instructing parents on how to offer a better learning environment for children at home. However, such initiatives faced a certain degree of opposition from parents who were not ready to leave their ethnic and racial identities.

A major hurdle was the economic impracticability of sustaining such child welfare activities. Most of these initiatives were criticized as “socialistic,” but many children enjoyed the benefits of programs intended to improve the overall situations of children and their families. Children not only experienced better living conditions; they also gained many opportunities to rise out of poverty. As a result, more immigrant children started coming to school regularly.

Ever-increasing fiscal burdens on schools created by child well-being initiatives caused political opposition and social criticism. In order to reduce costs, many state governments withdrew funding for social services offered by public schools. As a result, the upsurge of underprivileged children in the late 1980s and early 1990s was met with reduced and nonexistent services emanating from schools.

The depressed socioeconomic conditions of underprivileged families were responsible for undermining the learning process and academic achievement of many children. Teachers again tried to find innovative ways to help students and tried to support their local public school systems by assisting in improving social conditions and creating better learning opportunities.

Social reformers began making better use of schools to improve socioeconomic situations in different communities. Many full-service school programs were introduced to bolster the relationship between schools and communities, with the main objective to improve situations and provide better environments for children, their parents, and the community overall.

Most of these experimental policies for child welfare and social reform suggested that the efficiency of school-community relationships and their positive impact could be maximized by increasing parental involvement in schools. By encouraging parents to take an active role in the education system, policymakers tried to improve school services by making schools more accessible to parents. This also helped schools improve their relationship with parents, and helped them improve students’ performance.

Many researchers set out to substantiate analytically that parental involvement strengthened the school-community relationship by improving social conditions of students. Educational researchers suggested that parental involvement could positively improve the academic achievement of children. Studies revealed that those students whose parents were involved with their learning process were performing better, attended classes more regularly, and scored higher on school examinations than students who were lacking parental support and involvement in their learning.

Studies also suggested that low-performing schools could help failing students by trying to engage parents in the educational process of students. Researchers confirmed that schools could help students who have learning disabilities, or who belong to families from low socioeconomic backgrounds by interacting with and training their parents how to help these students with their learning and schooling processes.

In order to increase parental involvement, many schools use strategies such as inviting parents for open meetings with other parents, arranging social programs, asking parents to volunteer during school social and sports events,  issuing regular newsletters, connecting with parents through phone calls, and arranging for parent and teacher conferences.  These strategies may seem manipulative, and often fail to involve parents in the educational system. Still, school administrators and teachers may use these types of initiatives to increase parental involvement, while excluding parents from serious decision-making processes.

Often school administrations do not allow parents to raise their concerns about ineffective administrative policies, substandard teaching, and faulty grading systems. Regulated initiatives by schools to involve parents in the learning process of their kids often remain lopsided and ineffective because such activities restrict parents from interacting with the education system in a meaningful way.

School administrators and teachers often exploit regular parent-school collaboration methods by providing limited and biased information. They rely on parents being unquestioning and passive, and believe that only education professionals can truly improve student learning. Often they ignore the rights and abilities of parents to make decisions, as well as the ability of parents to contribute information and suggestions for improving the schooling process. Additionally, some administrators are unwilling to make accommodations for parents unable to take part in regular parent-teacher meetings and similar activities because of their work schedules.

Many schools do not engage in unprincipled measures to restrict parental involvement. Most genuinely value the input parents potentially provide. In order to improve parent-teacher collaboration, many have experimented with innovative ideas and have open door policies which allow individuals to observe school processes. Parents can visit at any time to scrutinize teaching methods, and how their children perform within the school structure. Such initiatives demand a flexible structural bureaucracy that allows parents to play a meaningful part in the decision-making process.

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

4 States that Want to Change How Much Teachers Are Paid

The amount teachers are paid has been the subject of some controversy. Yet with U.S. teachers spending more time in the classroom than other teachers worldwide, most teachers know that the money is hard-earned.

Indeed, despite the long hours, teachers in American aren’t compensated well, explains OECD director of education and skills Andreas Schleicher. The pay, compared to other countries, is competitive in the US; however, it lags behind that of other American workers with college educations.

The OECD report shows American teachers see smaller salary increases than their foreign counterparts; in the most recent year surveyed, the average teacher with 15 years of experience saw a salary increase of 32.6 percent. The US average was just 26.6 percent.

Because of this, it is not surprising that there are efforts around the country meant to change how much teachers earn. Let’s look at four states that have tried to reform teachers’ paychecks.

  1. Florida: Florida lawmaker Senator Darren Soto introduced a bill that would raise the minimum salary for teachers to $50,000 a year.

The Florida Teacher Fair Pay Act, or Senate Bill 280, calls for the Legislature to fund the Florida Education Finance Program in a manner that guarantees the $50,000 minimum starting salary for teachers with union representation.

In addition, the bill would prevent school districts from setting their own lower salary, and would leave base pay negotiation with teachers unions to be decided upon by each individual district. Teachers’ salaries would also require adjustment each year after based on inflation from the year prior.

Soto hopes to help teachers after hearing from many who are threatening to walk away from their careers in the Sunshine State unless something changes. He believes that the minimum starting salary for teachers will help.

A study obtained last month ranked Florida’s Orange County teachers as some of the lowest-paid in the country. The starting salary in Orange County is around $38,000.

“Even if we don’t get to the $50,000 mark, this is part of a larger debate of getting teacher salaries up from where they are now,” said Soto.

  1. North Carolina: According to the National Education Association’s ranking from 2012-2013, the average North Carolina teacher salary is around $46,000, 46th in the U.S. The nation’s average salary is over $55,000.

Events were held earlier this week in Asheville, Waynesville and Black Mountain to emphasize the push for higher pay for the states teachers.

North Carolina lawmakers are discussing a pay raise for teachers, but the proposals vary and if approved, will result in some changes for teachers beyond just an increase in their paycheck. The A.N.C. Senate proposal states that teacher’s assistants would be cut, yet tenure would remain. The House version would keep teachers assistants, but give the teachers a smaller raise.

Gerrick Brenner of Progress North Carolina, one of the groups involved in the Aim Higher Now petition says advocates aren’t seeking the pay raise in a single year, but instead over the next four or five years.

Parent Misty Miller attended the event on Monday. She says, “I came out today to support our teachers. I would like to see our teachers be treated as professionals.”

  1. Colorado: Not all proposed solutions seem to work for the benefit of the teachers. For example, leaders from the teacher’s union asked the Colorado Department of Education to review an evaluation system, also called CITE, that ties teacher pay raises to evaluations conducted by school principals. The teacher evaluation plan designed by the Douglas County School District in Colorado was found to comply with state law, according to the state’s Department of Education.

Under the educator effectiveness law, SB 191, school districts were granted the option of creating their own teacher evaluation system as long as it adheres to state guidelines. This was the first state review of a teacher evaluation system developed by a school district.

The review that approved the system did find that the district may not have effectively communicated to teachers information about other district-initiated reviews that occur when an initial review seems to be an outlier. The state suggested including that information in the evaluation guide and on the website to ensure the teachers are well informed.

It’s essential to find a measuring system to ensure that these individualized ways of evaluating teachers doesn’t harm the school quality and penalize teachers.

  1. Ohio: In another effort that may not be entirely beneficial to teachers, the Reynoldsburg school board in Ohio wants to change the way the district pays its teachers through eliminations of scheduled raises and the health insurance plan.

Instead teachers would receive increases in pay based on the ratings they receive in the state’s new evaluation system.  If their schools perform well on state report cards and they perform work above and beyond classroom duties, they would also be eligible for bonuses.  The district would provide the teachers with an undisclosed amount of money to buy their own insurance instead of being offered health-insurance coverage.

The school wants to revere good teaching by paying higher salaries and distributing bonuses to teachers. If teachers don’t attain a rating of excellence, the goal is to encourage rapid improvement.

The state’s new teacher-evaluation system would put the highest rating teachers up for a 4 percent raise, skilled teachers would get a 2 percent raise and developing teachers would earn a 1 percent raise. Teachers in the lowest category would not receive an increase in pay.

In addition, teachers who work in schools with a composite grade of an A on the state report card would receive a bonus of $500, and those in schools with a B would receive $250.

The school board’s plan would also allow teachers to apply for a $30,000 “fellowship award” if the performance of their students exceeds expectations and the teacher has taken on additional district responsibilities rendered high in value.

The current teachers’ pact expires July 31.

I like that Reynoldsburg wants to reward its teachers with solid pay increases and eligibility for bonuses. However, I do fear that some high quality, hardworking teachers may receive low evaluations despite their dedication.

Respect for teachers is an important metric for the strength of a school system on a national scale. Paying our teachers well is one way to demonstrate respect for teachers and their profession.

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, Matthew Lynch

Parallels Between Entrepreneurial Traits and School Leadership

Most school leaders don’t play a part in recruiting teaching staff, but are largely responsible for their development. Career development of teachers depends on the school culture and environment. School leadership must shape a school system in order to allow the growth of teacher professionalism and instructional capacity.

School leaders are supposed to shape teaching staff to gain other skills by assigning duties that are non-academic : e.g., bus duty, sports supervision, and coaching instruction. Similarly, school leaders should try to retain the most productive teachers without stifling their growth. The same predicament befalls entrepreneurs in Small Market Enterprises (SME’s). An entrepreneurial school leader strives to ensure that their school retains the most competitive, productive teaching staff, leading to better student results.

Good entrepreneurs conceive and implement workable communication channels to achieve meaningful results. School leaders could use this in dealing with teaching staff and students. Communication has always been an important part of leadership. Since successful entrepreneurs are good communicators, school leaders need to keep their communication channels open and develop good listening and negotiation skills.

School leaders also need to keep teaching staff motivated, because satisfied employees produce better results. It is up to the school leader to create innovative motivation techniques for staff satisfaction. While school leaders don’t have the same powers as entrepreneurs in raising teachers’ wages, they must implement non-monetary motivation techniques, such as creating a conducive workplace with reduced stress and burnout levels, and a friendly school culture.

Most teachers quit work for similar reasons as other employees, including feeling under-appreciated , broken agreements, harassment by superiors, or unpleasant working environments. Entrepreneurial school leaders should avoid the mistakes that lead to those situations. Employees associate leader empathy and fairness with a highly motivational culture. Therefore, school leaders should try to develop these traits. Job satisfaction is strongly influenced by the sense of job freedom, as well as satisfaction with the leadership style .

The basic requirements for successful entrepreneurship include appropriate wage systems, team building, and a satisfactory internal communication system. Since higher wages are not necessarily a motivator , team-building and internal communication systems are most applicable to the school setting.

Separating entrepreneurs into “employee friendly” and “employee distant,” we assess how these two entrepreneurial characters apply in relation to the teaching staff’s perception of the school leader.. “Employee friendly” leaders are more creative in designing the right motivational and communication structure in their organizations, and possess empathy and fairness, providing higher motivation and job satisfaction for employees than “employee distant” leaders. Teachers would almost certainly prefer the friendly leader over the distant one.

This preference, however, does not affect entrepreneurial leadership, since it is more concerned with ends than means. Entrepreneurial leaders find a balance between empathy and authority.

Empowering leadership behavior includes encouraging self-reward systems, self-leadership, opportunity perception, participative goal-setting, and autonomous behavior by followers. In the school setting, freedom should be granted to teachers where classroom instruction is involved, and they should also be involved in decision-making processes.

Empowering school leaders increase the motivation and confidence of their followers toward the accomplishment of the school objectives through positive encouragement and support. In the school setting, the school leader should distribute leadership among senior staff-members, who can assist in certain school administrative functions such as student discipline, running sports activities, and participating in tasks that can be delegated.

School leaders should draw a line between the issues that need consensus, and those where they should intervene and make quick decisions. As schools are diverse, due to the variety of careers and interests that converge in the school setting, school leaders should be careful not to allow the problems that come from diversity to slow down decision-making processes. It is advisable that entrepreneurial school leaders in dynamic environments where there is external pressure should avoid complex decision-making processes.

However, in stable environments, such as private schools, leaders can allow the empowered staff to spend more time considering what alternative strategies are available and exploring the potential for various activities, since consensus is not urgent.

Directive leadership behavior in the school setting is instructional in nature. School leaders should instruct teachers on matters regarding the curriculum, formulation of rules, and state policies on educational matters.

School leaders can create a common vision in their school through the setting of rules and by enforcing them through instruction. The benefits of this type of leadership are often faster decision-making and clearer goals.

Exceptional entrepreneurial leadership entails a combination of directive leadership and the other mentioned traits, such as empowerment, recruitment, motivation, and communication. School leaders who wish to pursue this entrepreneurial perspective in their running of the school should adopt this approach. A model of entrepreneurial leadership that is inclusive, participative, motivating, and directive seems to be the most suitable in the school setting.

When it comes to entrepreneurial leadership, research on the application of this model in the school setting is rare. Since the model has been used successfully in the business sector, we can relate the factors that enhance its success to the school setting by drawing parallels. It is possible that most school leaders may also be entrepreneurs, and therefore would embrace this leadership style, which involves the use of talents they may already possess.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Education Leadership, HBCU's, Higher Education, Matthew Lynch

Past, Present, and Future of Sustainable Leadership

Sustainable leadership builds on the past in an effort to create a better future for schools. This is against most educational change theories, which do not find a place for the past, since the “arrow of change” is thought to move only in a forward direction. Past problems are generally either ignored, or overcome in a rush to get to future improvement.

For those leaders attracted or addicted to change, the past is seen as a monument of backward thinking and irrational resistance for those whom they consider to favor the status quo, or those emotionally incapable of letting go of old habits and beliefs. These leaders consider the past to be a dark era of weak or poor leadership practices that leave negative legacies, models of schooling, or “uninformed” professional judgment in classroom instruction. All of these are negatives are seen as barriers to modernization.

Reform based only on the present or future becomes the opposite of sustainability. Sustainable development has the distinction of respecting, protecting, preserving, and renewing all the valuable elements of the past and learning from those elements to build a better future. One way of getting in touch with the past is to see teacher resistance and nostalgia among members of the profession not as obstacles to change, but as sources of wisdom. Teachers’ years of classroom experience should not be discounted.

Change theory must strive to create proposals that are built upon past legacies, instead of trying to ignore or destroy them. While contemplating changes, sustainable leadership calls on leaders to look to the past for precedents that might be reinvented or refined. Events of the past may also be used as evidence of policies that have succeeded or failed before.

However, the above proposal does not mean that leaders live in the past, but value and learn from it. We have to end “creative destruction,” where leaders see the need to wipe out the past in order to create a future. Creative destruction usually leads to endless back-and-forth movements, increased employee burnout, and the unnecessary waste of expertise and memory that has been accumulated over time. Instead, a creative recombination of the best parts of the past in a resourceful and renewing way should be used.

Through sustainable leadership, leaders should find new structures, technology, and people by finding, redistributing, reusing, and recombining mismatched parts that have been lying around in the school’s organizational “basement.” Sustainable leadership and improvement is concerned with both the future and the past. It refuses to treat people’s knowledge, careers, and experience as disposable waste, because, in reality, they are valuable and renewable resources. In conclusion, sustainable leadership does not blindly endorse the past, but respects and learns from it.

 

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

Adopting a New Paradigm in K-12 Education

Substantial educational change will never occur until we as a country decide that enough is enough and make a commitment to change, no matter what it takes. When America realizes all children deserve a stellar education regardless of who their parents are, what their socioeconomic status is, or where they happen to live, we will be able to reform our education system. The American K-12 education treats minority students in under performing urban environments like collateral damage.

The disheartening reality is that America has billions of dollars to fight a two-front war, but cannot or will not properly educate its children. If a hostile country attacked the U. S., it would take less than 24 hours for American troops to be mobilized into battle. However, we seem unable to mobilize a sea of educated teachers and administrators to wage war against academic mediocrity, which is a bigger threat to our national security than Iran or North Korea.

The structure of schools in the U.S. is no longer able to meet the educational needs of children today. No longer are the poor restricted to the prospect of becoming manual laborers in a local factory or simply entering just another blue-collar job. Nor are the benefits of education confined to the elite in society. Times have changed and it would only be natural to expect that the demands on our education system have changed as well. No longer can we rest assured that the best and brightest members of our society will educate our children.

Educational change will never occur if school systems are expected to implement change on their own. State and federal governments need to oversee changes to ensure that local school districts are held accountable for needed changes. School administrators often seem to buy in when educational reform is suggested, but somehow genuine change in education is rarely implemented.

Over the last century, many reform movements have come and gone, but in the end it seems there have been no substantial changes. Some might even believe the American educational system is now worse off than ever. From Bush’s No Child Left Behind to Obama’s Race to the Top, presidents have shown an inability to tackle the real issues of education reform. Reform is primarily used as campaign rhetoric, and when it comes time to take real action, the politicians simply unveil a grandiose plan with all the bells and whistles amounting to a dog and pony show.

America’s schools were originally intended to ensure that all citizens were literate. The founding purpose for American schools has long been obsolete, and Americans must have the courage to realize that in order for us to remain a world power, we must institute change. The risks have never been greater; the future of our country and its children is at stake. Americans cannot continue to allow the educational system to operate in its current state. While there is no magic formula or configuration to solve the problems our schools face, we must engender change, and we must do it now!

On the surface, the concept of sustaining school reform is an oxymoron, simply because change is inevitable. In many ways, what is needed is sustainable change! In other words, schools must change to meet the current needs of children and youth in order to support their development into contributing and productive adults. As the needs of our society shifts, our education system must adapt to ensure that it prepares an educated populous to meet society’s needs.

Education reform is possible, but it depends on what the nation is willing to do to achieve its educational goals. Will America develop and pass effective educational legislation aimed at creating viable solutions to the problem at hand? Or will America continue to develop legislation, such as No Child Left Behind, that operates under the fallacy that 100% of our students will be proficient in their core subjects by 2014? The bar for education should be set higher, but there has to be exceptions and differentiated goals in order to effectively accommodate all the differences among teachers, students, administrators, and school cultures.

Our youngsters are the future of this great country, and our educators must do their part to help put America back on top as a major world power in both economics and education. Lasting and beneficial change in our schools will require hard work from a committed group of stakeholders — teachers, administrators, parents, policymakers, and community members alike. Ultimately, it is the children who matter most. At the end of the day, they are the reasons why we must champion the work of public education and adopt a new paradigm.

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Matthew Lynch published in Matthew Lynch, Policy & Reform

The Ultimate Demise of Common Core – Part III: The Logistics

From an idealogical perspective, the differences that divide Americans are also what make the nation unique and great. When it comes to education, however, there seems to be a competing theory that differences should be dismissed in favor of finding a standardized way to teach all K-12 students. Time and again when it comes to national policy on education, stringent sets of benchmarks are consistently put in place that are accompanied with funding incentives. The latest example of this one-size-fits-all approach to education policy is Common Core standards and the testing that goes with them.

This week I’ve already written about the way politics and parents will contribute to the end of days for Common Core and today I’d like to add in exactly how the logistics will too.

American students really are multi-faceted.

It seems everywhere you look, we celebrate diversity in this country. From skin color, to language spoken, to sexual preferences, the national message seems to be “Be you. Whatever that looks like.” Except when it comes to measuring a “good” education. It’s widely accepted that students learn in different ways and customized learning initiatives are a trend fueled by in-classroom technology. HOW students learn is varied, but WHAT they are learning is somehow expected to fall into some neat, standardized package. Laying down countrywide rules of sorts for learning, and attaching those to funding, is an easy way to check off boxes on a spreadsheet but not an effective way to teach each student exactly what he or she needs to know based on career paths, interests and life circumstances.

Regionalisms exist.

It’s true that the world is becoming smaller and that the differences that once divided K-12 students by geography are shrinking. Still, there are some learning standards that just make more sense in one area over another. The benefits of learning a foreign language should be shared on a national level, but the specifics of those benchmarks should be considered. A state like Arizona or Texas, for example, with a high percentage of Spanish-speakers could benefit from more curriculum customized to that population, and in a much more effective way than a state like Iowa or Maine. Common Core is not a curriculum set, of course, but I use the language example as a way to show the difference between students and how where they live really does impact what they really should know. Industry specific learning is also a consideration when it comes to what should be taught more heavily, not as a way to pigeon-hole students but as a way to set them up for the best chance at career success. Considerations for subject areas that have been weak in a particular region should also be thought about and given priority.

There is not one model student.

The idea that all U.S. K-12 students should know exactly the same things, and graduate from high school with the same shared learning experiences is flawed. Of course no one expects any two students to be identical in their learning outcomes, but the implication of Common Core standards are that there should be a cookie-cutter which every district and every teacher uses. Such an educational model goes against every other American ideal – like innovation, creativity and individuality – yet is prevalent throughout the public school system. If there were one leading flaw in Common Core requirements, it would be this: it allows no wiggle room for letting students be the people they were meant to be.

If you could pinpoint the crux of the problem with Common Core standards and implementation, what would it be?

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