Bush Foundation blogs

Study, New York Times article support importance of effective teaching

Joseph Dominic — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 22:28:29 +0000

As educators have long known, their multiple efforts to help students “light their own fires” of learning don’t routinely work the way they expect. Lots of factors contribute to the range of student outcomes, including variations in the demographic mix of students in each class, the culture of the school, the complexity of subject matter, the persistent determination and ingenuity of teachers, the quality and availability of ongoing professional support for teachers to improve their craft, and the capacity of families to support learning.

In January, the New York Times wrote about a recent study by professors Raj Chetty and John N. Friedman of Harvard and Jonah E. Rockoff of Columbia titled “The Long-Term Impact of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Student Outcomes in Adulthood.”

The study followed 2.5 million students over 20 years, and the findings touch on two topics that support the Bush Foundation’s decision in 2008 to focus on improving educational achievement—effective teachers create positive impacts for students, and using value-added data to measure teacher quality is a valid method.

The Times article captures the economic importance of the study’s findings—“replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000”—and also adds important perspective on the continuing national debates over whether and how to measure the quality of teachers.

Even though two of the study authors began the project skeptical about value-added data, in the end the Times reported “The authors [of the study] argue that school districts should use value-added measures in evaluations.”

Using value-added data to understand better the effects of quality teaching on student success is an important part of the Foundation’s educational achievement program. The study lends support to this commitment by the Foundation.

Joseph Dominic is a consultant with FHI360. He coaches the University of South Dakota, one of the Foundation’s higher education partners, as it undertakes the incredibly challenging work of reforming how it recruits, prepares, places and supports new teachers.

Talk back to Bush

What are your thoughts on the study?

Road Notes: Opportunities and challenges on the MHA Nation

Elli Haerter — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 17:09:53 +0000

Pop Quiz: Through which tribal community in North Dakota do approximately 11,000 vehicles now drive daily?

Answer: New Town!

I was among the vehicle traffic traveling in and around New Town recently while I attended the second annual Energy Oil and Gas Summit, “Looking Out for Our Interests Today, for Tomorrow,” on February 1-2. I really enjoyed my first trip to the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara (MHA) Nation, and I especially appreciated the friendly hellos from strangers, and the handshakes and hugs of old acquaintances.

Jaime Pinkham, vice president of the Native Nations Team, and I traveled to this conference to see first-hand the fast-changing development in the region, and to hear and learn about the oil and gas issues facing the Tribe and its membership, specifically the allottees (‘‘Indian allottee’’ means any Indian for whom land or an interest in land is held in trust by the United States).

According to the US Department of the Interior, $117 million in royalty payments was generated on this reservation in 2011, which is up 400% from the previous year. Those royalty payments went to the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribal government and individual American Indian mineral owners. An impressive lineup of speakers shared additional data that included tax revenue figures, oil and natural gas production statistics and the measurable impacts of all of this development and wealth.

In case you don’t realize it, much of western North Dakota is either in the middle of a major oil boom, or is in some way dealing with the effects of this oil boom. It’s predicted to be a major boom for years to come, but it’s not without its challenges. At the Summit, MHA Nation Vice Chairman Scott Eagle expressed some of those challenges: workforce education, community infrastructure, understanding revenues, state taxation agreement and impacts on first responders.

North Dakota Governor Jack Darymple attended and shared the latest efforts of state government around these issues within the MHA Nation and in the region, bringing with him many of his top aides, including North Dakota Indian Commission Executive Director Scott Davis (a Native Nation Rebuilder). The State of North Dakota will be constructing a truck reliever route around the community of New Town in the near future; it has also set up a Housing Incentive Fund, a special revolving fund capitalized by contributions from North Dakota taxpayers. Ron Ness shared some incredible industry statistics as the president of the 340-member North Dakota Petroleum Council, including the fact that the average annual salary of an oil field worker is $92,000. Dave Archambault II, another Rebuilder, represented United Tribes Technical College on a panel about tribal colleges’ role in building human resources to support the oil boom. Participants shared so many statistics I felt like I was swimming in numbers!

Throughout the presentations and conversations between sessions, it became quite apparent that these are truly unique times. It will take courage from those formal and informal leaders who live and work on the MHA Nation to come together and solve the tough challenges that arise from this new prosperity. Panelist Marilyn Hudson gave a speech titled, “Knowing Whose Land You’re On,” in which she asked an important question: “Fifty years from now, will history find that the leaders in 2012 did the right thing?”

Ray Cross, distinguished professor from the University of Montana School of Law (and 1988 Bush Fellow), spoke about sharing development to maximize benefits for the reservation and highlighted several examples in the 20^thcentury of the Tribe’s hard work and determination as they built their Nation. He said that the MHA Nation can take on these new, challenging times because there’s a strong history of leadership.

The Foundation’s Native Nations goal was selected based on the research coming from Indian Country that shows that a tribe’s progress on core issues is greatest wherever self-determination comes first. There is ample evidence of this in MHA’s history. There is proof that they have a history of leadership willing to address the overwhelming challenges that confront Native nations. That same resolve will help them into the future with their oil and gas development. And exercising their inherent right of self-determination can assist them now, as it has in the past. Our work at the Bush Foundation is to support tribes at that intersection between leadership and self-determination.

Talk Back to Bush

If you attended the conference, what jumped out at you as important? What do you believe is the biggest challenge facing Native nations when it comes to managing their natural resources? What is the greatest opportunity? We want to know what you think.

A “new normal” requires new solutions…and courage

Gregory Keane — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 21:19:59 +0000

Everywhere you look, the tough problems created by the “new normal” have people, communities and governments in a tough spot. Do more with less…and do it better.

We at the Foundation know that the solutions to these problems often aren’t immediately evident. And they’re certainly not easy to create and implement. Yet a group of courageous leaders of human services departments in 12 southeast Minnesota counties are doing just that. They have come together to collaborate on redesigning their delivery of public services in a way that acknowledges and overcomes the challenges of the new normal. The work they’ve undertaken is bold and innovative, and it will help ensure the continued vitality of their communities.

The new normal is requiring new ways of working, thinking and prioritizing. Kudos to the leaders of this redesign project for working together toward solutions that can not only sustain their communities, but also offer hope—and guidance—to other communities who face similar challenges.

Talk back to Bush:

How have you seen the impact of the new normal in your community? Which institutions are ripe for redesign? How are you working in your community to solve its tough problems?

Working together to measure community vitality

Jane Leonard — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:14:45 +0000

The Advancing Solutions Team of the Bush Foundation recently hosted 20 community change researchers and evaluators from across the country, many of them colleagues I’ve met through the Community Development Society, a professional association. They came together to help us learn more about the difficult work of measuring progress in complex community change initiatives that seek to improve community vitality.

Our Foundation’s mission “is to be a catalyst for the courageous leadership necessary to create sustainable solutions to tough public problems and ensure community vitality.” We asked for measurement advice because we want to be able to gauge our effectiveness at fulfilling that mission, which ultimately depends on helping communities measure their community vitality over time and the effects of various efforts to improve vitality.

Measuring the effectiveness of one strategy over another is difficult to trace in community change initiatives because there are so many factors at work. But that challenge offers a great learning opportunity – for communities, for funders of community change work like the Bush Foundation and for the community change field itself.

Our panel of researchers said a first step was asking a more basic question: How do you define community vitality? What do you see in your mind and on the street when you say your community is vital? One person’s idea of community vitality might be vastly different from another’s.

One way to figure out how people define community vitality is to ask them what indicators they would choose to say that their community is vital or not. Indicators help us know and express how our community is doing. It’s like a thermometer reading that not only tells me I have a fever but how high my temperature is and, over time, whether or not it’s climbing. Knowing that information helps me make decisions about how and when to act.

Choosing indicators among the many that help define vitality, or creating new ones to demonstrate your definition of vitality, helps you fine-tune what you mean by vitality. It also demonstrates where your vision of vitality might differ from other citizens in your community. In those differences comes a chance for conversations that help discern and refine commonly held goals for community vitality. And that’s when short- and long-term measurements can start happening – when your goals and indicators align.

In Minnesota, we have a good start on general indicators that measure progress and inspire action. Minnesota Compass is a dashboard of indicators that gives everyone a common foundation from which to identify, understand and act on issues that affect our communities. (By the way, development of North Dakota Compass began last year and the site will launch later this year. Work on the early stages of a Compass-like tool for South Dakota has also begun.)

Another way to learn more about indicators and their linkage to performance measurement is to check out the Community Indicators Consortium (CIC). Their report, Creating Stronger Linkages between Community Indicator Projects and Government Performance Measurement Efforts, published in 2007, identifies the benefits to be gained from such linkages.

We’ll use these and other resources as we continue to develop a measurement framework for our community change work. We welcome any insights you have from experiences in your own communities and organizations.

It doesn’t have to be that way

Carol McFarlane — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:37:32 +0000

On any given day, Minnesotans can pick up the newspaper and see evidence of partisanship at play in our state and national politics. It’s enough to turn many off. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Throughout November 2011, I was proud to be a part of a statewide effort to bring together Minnesota’s nonpartisan local government leaders to talk about how we can work together to deliver public services more efficiently and for better outcomes. These Local Government Innovation Forums were co-sponsored by the League of Minnesota Cities (LMC), Association of Minnesota Counties (AMC) and Minnesota School Boards Association (MSBA) in partnership with InCommons and the Bi-Partisan House Redesign Caucus, which I co-chair. It’s not often that such esteemed associations come together to address a shared concern, and I was excited to see them coalesce around an issue so important to the future of our state: redesign.

Redesign has the attention of our local leaders and members of the Legislature, like me, because we know that innovative thinking is what we need to grow Minnesota’s economy and maintain the state’s high-quality public services and outstanding quality of life. We understand that our state, and nation, is facing a “new normal.” Our aging population and shrinking workforce are placing new demands on our public services, while changes in our economy mean that we won’t have the tax dollars to keep up.

In this “new normal,” our choices for preserving Minnesota’s high-quality public services are few and clear: We could focus our attention on the traditional political choices of to cut or to tax, or we could turn our attention toward innovation and redesign. With more than 400 local government leaders attending the Innovation Forums, it’s clear that our elected officials at all levels of government are looking for ways to work together and unlock the true potential of redesign.

At each of the six events, I had the opportunity to sit with local government leaders from different jurisdictions and perspectives. In each instance, I was encouraged by the ideas for collaboration that emerged. We heard about cross-jurisdictional collaborations and innovations already underway in services ranging from snow removal and policing services, to offering top-notch high school electives and providing communities access to a variety of health and human services.

Yet these events weren’t just about the ideas generated. They were also about building relationships among our local government leaders to equip them to continue generating innovations in the months and years ahead. Take my experience at the Marshall event. That night I sat at a table with representatives of the local services co-operative, the city, the county and the school district. Each of these people knew each other, but through our conversations, it quickly became clear that they had never had the chance to spend time learning about each other’s work. They hadn’t had the space to sit together and have an honest conversation about how they could each help each other do their work better. Because of these events, I’m convinced that these local leaders will continue their conversations and the Marshall-area residents will be the benefactors of those conversations for years to come.

It’s just one of the countless examples I experienced during the forums – and it’s just one of the many reasons I believe that Minnesota’s local governments will be on the forefront of this important work to preserve what’s great about our state.

It’s worth noting that none of these events would have been possible without the generous support of the Bush Foundation and InCommons. Their commitment to inspiring and facilitating courageous conversations, like those hosted at the Innovation Forums, are equipping a new generation of Minnesotans to tackle everyday problems in their communities. It’s awe-inspiring to see so many ideas sparked through their support.

And this is not the end. I know the House Redesign Caucus and all of the partners involved with November’s Innovation Forums plan to continue this conversation with all Minnesotans. Thank you once again, Bush Foundation, for all of your support!

Representative Carol McFarlane is the co-chair of the Minnesota House Redesign Caucus and represents District 53B.

Talk back to Bush

What are your thoughts on local government redesign and how it can impact your community?

Collab-umentary Night: an evening of more than just video-storytelling

Richard Bidmead — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 21:16:11 +0000

Using video to share and receive stories is a great passion of mine. I’ll never forget the first time I realized my digital camera could make films! And not just any film, but the kind that empowered me to speak in ways I never otherwise would.

This is why the recent Collab-umentary Night was so intriguing to me: here was a room filled with people finding their voices and listening to the voices of others. We gathered not only to acquire technical skills in camera use, but also to gain strength in the collective experience of learning through working together. Although some of the night would focus on which button to push to make the camera record, most of it was on what it takes to express and capture our stories. The camera was more of a middle-man (albeit an important one).

Among the 60 community leaders at Collab-umentary Night, one in particular stood out to me. Her name is Shameika Marshall, and like me, she is a Public Ally (Allies have one belief in common: everyone leads).

As part of her leadership work, Shameika is in the process of starting a women’s shelter. As with any start-up, there have been some bumps in the road. One problem is that when she shares with most people the story of what she is trying to accomplish, they don’t really listen to her story. Instead, they write their own: “She is asking me for money.” That disconnect left Shameika discouraged.

So when Mandy Ellerton kicked off Collab-umentary Night by proclaiming that “the answers we need are already in the room” and then inviting people to ask for help in sharing their stories through film, Shameika rose to the occasion. Apprehensive at first, I could see in her eyes the memories of the endless times she’d shared her story with an audience who wasn’t listening to her cause—not hearing her story. But when Shameika’s fellow “collab-umentors” in the room responded to her call and rallied behind her video, something shifted for her.

On Collab-umentary Night, Shameika not only made a video, but her story was truly seen and heard—in the same way mine was when I first picked up my camera. There was new power to her voice, and because of that, the night was a success.

Congratulations to education partner Dr. Steve Shirley!

Stephanie Andrews — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:00 +0000

Prairie Business Magazine recently named Valley City State University (VCSU) President Dr. Steve Shirley one of the 40 under 40 business leaders who are making a difference in North Dakota and South Dakota. In recognizing Dr. Shirley’s leadership, the magazine cited VCSU’s three consecutive years of growth and the creation of two new academic centers.

As a partner in our educational achievement initiative, we’ve experienced Dr. Shirley’s courageous leadership first-hand. We’re working with VCSU and 13 higher education institutions in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota to transform teacher training. This partnership, the Network for Excellence in Teaching (NExT), aims to recruit high-caliber students to pursue teaching, prepare them well, place them in schools and support them once they get there.

Research shows teacher effectiveness is the number one in-school factor for improving student performance and reducing disparities. Over the next 10 years, projections show the three states may need as many as 25,000 new teachers. To prepare for this need, we’re focusing on recruiting and training the teachers of tomorrow. Our ultimate goal is to ensure more P-12 students go on to some form of post-secondary education and that the achievement gaps narrow. Accomplishing these goals will take the continued leadership of higher education professionals, like Dr. Shirley and our partners, as we work together to improve educational outcomes for young people.

Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition.

She changed the world for battered women

Maggie Arzdorf-Schubbe — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:45:27 +0000

Ellen Pence, who passed away last week, would never have called herself a courageous leader, yet her life’s work embodied all the characteristics we ascribe to those who tackle tough problems and motivate people to address the world’s injustices. Ellen was smart, a visionary, a teacher, a mentor and an advocate.She drew people to her cause and her work though humor, challenging conversations and effective strategies. Her commitment to making the world free of violence against women and children never wavered throughout her life—and because of her, things changed.

Ellen was the director of the Minnesota Battered Women Program at the Department of Corrections when she hired me as her research analyst. In this role, I watched her teach the Minnesota Legislature that joking about wife beating was not acceptable. I witnessed her educate battered women from throughout the state on how to develop services for other women and to change systems that kept women in violent homes. I saw the tenor of the conversation change as policymakers listened to the voices of battered women who had been silenced for so many years. And the joking stopped. I saw financial support for shelters and services increase, and policies adopted to help victims be safe in their home.

Ellen’s connection to the Bush Foundation dates from the late 1970s, when she worked with Liz Pegues, a senior program officer at the Foundation to educate then-president, Humphrey Doermann, and the Board about the need for emergency shelters and services for battered women and their children. The Foundation’s early funding for services and education programs about the issue of domestic violence helped establish Minnesota as the model for effective statewide services. More importantly, a courageous funding decision by the Foundation’s Board helped Ellen develop the first coordinated community response to victims of domestic violence in Duluth. The Duluth Model effectively shifted from the victim to the community the responsibility to keep victims safe and hold abusers accountable to the whole community. Ellen's trainings changed systems and communities throughout the world.

Ellen’s legacy is broad. Countless battered women and their children are alive because of her pioneering work. Law enforcement, corrections, judicial and other professionals do their work differently because of her. And last, but by no means least, she leaves behind a huge network of people like me who call her friend.

Maggie Arzdorf-Schubbe is a 1988 Bush Fellow and a long-time consultant to the Bush Foundation.

YouTube, Twin Cities Public Television or in a 2010 plenary address for the Batterers Intervention Services Coalition of Michigan.

Moving on

Peter C. Hutchinson — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:41:29 +0000

Last Friday, I stepped down as president of the Bush Foundation. I have loved my four plus years leading the organization through its transformation. The Foundation's Board has courageously committed the organization to being accountable for making a difference—for producing concrete results—on three of the toughest, and most important issues that face our communities.

Today the Foundation is a unique partner with the 23 Native nations that share the same geographic area as Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota in rebuilding their institutions of nationhood. The Foundation is directly supporting the tribes and their leaders in this self-determined, not Bush-determined, work. Research shows that only through self-determined nation-building can the tribes secure the future vitality of their communities. I know of no other foundation doing this work in this way.

Today the Bush Foundation is fostering the development of 25,000 new, highly effective teachers for our schools. That’s enough new teachers to fill every vacancy for the next 10 years. The evidence that effective teaching matters is compelling. Effective teachers raise the achievement of all students and close the achievement gap. In the Network for Excellence in Teaching (NExT), the Foundation has developed the largest partnership in the nation for transforming teacher preparation. These 25,000 teachers will literally change our schools.

Today the Foundation has in place the tools and technologies to support community-driven solutions to their own problems. Through a combination of leadership development, community engagement and mobilization, and testing of innovative solutions, Bush believes that communities can and will discover their own paths to sustained vitality. Bush Fellowships and its InCommons network offer unique ways for communities to take responsibility for their own futures.

With all that in place, why step aside now? Why not stay and see these great strides bear fruit? I plan to...just not as the organization’s president.

What I am best at, what I love doing, is leading an organization through change, developing powerful strategies for success and building its capacity. That is what the Board asked me to do back in 2007. And that is what I have dedicated myself to every day since.

That part of this organization’s journey is now complete. While I might like to believe that I can do all things well, I know that is not true. I am great at some things but only good at others. I believe there are others who will be better than me at leading the Foundation through the next phase of its journey. To make room for that next leadership, I need to step aside. It’s the right time to change.

For some this will seem sudden. I don’t believe in long goodbyes. If new leadership is going to succeed, old leadership needs to get out of the way so that the people in the organization and its partners can focus on the future and not the past. I know there is pain in change. I am sorry for that. But I would be sorrier if I did not do what I know to be best for the organization and those who will benefit for the difference it will make.

A tribal leader's test

Jaime A. Pinkham — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 17:33:41 +0000

Red Lake Chairman Floyd “Buck” Jourdain (below) prays every morning before he tackles his daily leadership work. The extra strength and guidance is a valuable commodity to an elected leader whose aspirations and skills are tested—and graded—every day. Tribal leaders are tested during tragedy and storm, as well as the grueling tests that come in times of prosperity.

During a recent meeting, he told me the fanfare and accolades when he was first elected lasted one day. He grinned, saying it started fading the moment he took office. A few months later, in March 2005, one of the darkest days at Red Lake occurred with a school shooting. Sympathetic and sometimes prying eyes focused on Red Lake.

Although tribes are the longest surviving governments, they remain one of the most unknown authorities in this country. Combining this with unique traditions and beliefs is likely to lead to differences and conflict. Such was the case when Chairman Jourdain guarded Red Lake’s politically sovereign lines in order to protect another sacred sovereign: a sovereignty of heart where a community relies on inherent traditions to handle grief and healing. The press was kept at bay. Not a popular move among the media, but as a leader he was not afraid of the test.

The Foundation’s Native nations goal commits to supporting tribal self-determination. The strategy to achieve our goal respects tribes as distinct political governments with inherent rights of self-rule. That is why you find us working through the guidance of the elected leaders. Boil it down, and it means that we don’t get to pick who we work with at each of the tribes. That decision is made for us, not by us, and it is made every time the citizens of each Native nation elect their leaders. We honor their decisions.

Tribal self-determination is about answers that come from within. We are just a partner trying to support tribes in finding their own long-term solutions to address their tough challenges. It’s not an easy goal for the Foundation, and it is a tougher task still for the tribal leaders. Chairman Jourdain recognizes the tasks ahead. He embraces them all, including the first one when he pauses to start his day by acknowledging a sacred bond with the people, the land and with his Creator.

Inside his office is a framed jersey and across the room is an autographed sneaker. Basketball legend Magic Johnson sent both gifts as gestures of hope and compassion following the 2005 tragedy. As we were leaving, the Chairman and Sam Strong (a member of the Foundation’s inaugural class of Native Nation Rebuilders from Red Lake) talked about their upcoming basketball game on a local “rez” league. It made the Chairman sound like an ordinary guy, and to me that made him amazing: an ordinary guy who gets tested every day to do extraordinary things.