~synthesis~

absurdity

2009-11-08T14:59:44-08:00

The recent healthcare debate has been angst-ridden to say the least. With something this big, everyone's bound to have issues, and compromise is the word of the day. But there's a limit isn't there?

The New York Times singled out two constituencies today - overweight people, and people who care about abortion rights. The "fat pride" [their phrase not mine] people argue that being heavy is not unhealthy (!?!). According to Linda Bacon, a professor of nutrition at City College of San Francisco, “What we’re doing in public health care policy is harmful. We give a direct and clear message that there’s something wrong with being fat.” The Pro-Life people argue that the government should not fund abortions because they are morally opposed to it.

The Center for Disease Control and the Office of the Surgeon General say that obesity is unhealthy, increases the risk of other diseases, and requires more medical intervention over the life of the patient. These are not guesses, there is data to back this up. Of course we're giving a direct and clear message that there's something wrong with being fat! What kind of moron (other than Ms Bacon) would say that's a bad thing? And yet, we have a huge (sorry) lobby that's now actively pursuing this agenda! Given how politicians whore themselves out to lobbies with voters, I have no doubt that we will see some Congressional panderer put forth a bill making obesity an American right.

IMO societal obesity is a failure - but our focus should be building a culture of health and fitness in our children. That's how we change things.

People are discriminated against based on how they look; obese people are obviously so, and therefore subject to discrimination. This is inexcusable. BUT - let's not mistake anti-discrimination as reason to argue that we should encourage obesity! Jeez!

In 1973, the United States Supreme Court held that a woman may abort her pregnancy for any reason, provided that the fetus is younger than 24-28 weeks (after which it is deemed to be viable - able to survive outside the womb). After 24-28 weeks, abortion must be available when needed to protect the woman's health.

IMO every abortion is a failure - but our focus should be on preventing unwanted pregnancies. That's how we change things.

The Supreme Court is the law of the land. If the law of the land states that abortion is legal, then how is it possible that the government's health insurance plan won't cover it? If a healthcare bill does get passed, I hope someone appeals this exclusion and that the Supreme Court has the fortitude to hear the case.

But this is all just sophistry. Here's the real absurdity:

The greatest impetus for healthcare reform is neither abortion nor obese people - it is serving the millions of citizens that don't have access to medical care. It is recognition that these un(or under)-insured Americans ought to have access as a matter of societal rightness. I couldn't agree more - a society is formed when people want to live together for mutual benefit; it is when the community works together to care of the one. IMO this is at the core of being human.

Which segment of society is more likely to be obese? Which segment is more likely to have an unplanned pregnancy? I'll give you one guess.

"Democracy" is a powerful word. According to Webster, two definitions are: "a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation"; and "the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges." Both American political parties are supporters of the democratic ideal - this is a big part of American foreign policy - bringing lawful democracy to those that don't have it. But when it comes to their own citizens, elected leaders on both sides of the aisle are flaunting both their own laws and the essence of democratic equality.

The absurdity must end.

the time is now

2009-11-06T18:05:28-08:00

This week, I had the great pleasure of meeting Prof. Deborah Ball (math teacher and Dean of UMichigan's School of Education) as she spoke to a group of math teachers (I crashed the party). She was there to talk about teaching math, but really, her presentation was about two issues that I think we ignore at our own peril - a national education approach vs. state/district, and that teaching is a professional discipline and not a just a job.

With respect to federalizing - IMO it is utterly moronic to have more than one school district in America. According to the 2002 census there are:

13,506 school district governments
178 state-dependent school systems
1,330 local-dependent school systems
1,196 education service agencies (agencies providing support services to public school systems)

That's 16,210 separate entities that govern this country's public school system! There's just no way a rational person can say that's a good thing. It turns out, neither the Constitution or any of the 27 Amendments ever mentions the word "education" - that's a mistake.

My thanks to Larry for the African proverb below - it is brilliant, has many messages, not the least of which is "sure if you had had a brain you would have done this ages ago, but since you didn't then, it's time to grow some and get it done now." President Obama and Secretary Duncan need to grow some (the Republicans will likely endorse this before the Democrats), argue that eliminating 16,210 agencies is a good thing, and that we need a 28th Amendment to the Constitution to mandate that public education be nationally funded and administered.

As Deborah pointed out, every country that does education well, does it as one - we can learn from that. Moreover it is morally abhorrent for the government to discriminate against a child's right to a great education just because of their zip code. <-- Where are our student-rights advocates?

The second (and best) part of Deborah's speech was about teaching as a profession, with specific skills, discipline and capabilities. Lay teachers (i.e. parents, etc.) do create learning experiences for their child, but they have nowhere near a professional approach, worse, they often do the wrong thing if their goal is to grasp the child's current understanding and help them learn more. (If the goal is to make the "teacher" feel good, then they're successful.)

Read at least the first 2-3 presentations on Deborah's website, and you will see that she talks at length about how a professional teacher is distinguished from a lay-teacher. She also answers the question "what persistently impedes progress?" by identifying five contributors:

Persisting with extinct arguments about skills versus conceptual understanding
Lack of a central or common curriculum
Persisting with outdated and refuted ideas about "teacher quality," especially with respect to content knowledge
Persisting with pendulum shifts from teacher-proofing to teachers, but rarely focusing on teachING
Persisting with approaches to teacher education that emphasize things other than practice (e.g. reflection, believes, propositional knowledge, experience)

We've talked about #2 already, the other four are all aspects of respecting teachers as professionals, treating them as such, measuring their ability to teach separately from domain knowledge, and providing them with the tools and mentorship and support to become more skilled teachers. During her lecture, she gave us all a bunch of tests that show how different it is to be a professional teacher vs. a lay-teacher. It was fantastic.

But do teachers really want to be professionals? Do they really want that obligation and expectation? I think they do, I think the bulk of teachers go into it because they are called to it. BUT - as Deborah points out, that doesn't mean they're going to be good at it. It's also not the case that teaching is more art than science. There are specific tools and techniques that effective teachers use that lay-teachers or ineffective teachers don't. This needs to change.

But achieving professionalism isn't just about the teacher, it's a systemic commitment. It must start with the school leaders and administrators providing an environment where teachING is valued and developed; it goes to teachers colleges who must focus on developing these skills from the outset and for accreditation; it goes to the unions who must support these initiatives to measure and compensate their members in terms of their professional ability vs. tenure. It goes to teachers who have to sign up to evolve their technique in order to improve their performance.

Note that I didn't say teachers should be accountable for student outcomes. I think that's the job of schools vs. individual teachers. BUT - teachers do need to be accountable for developing their craft. They need to be paid based on their ability (vs. tenure) in this regard.

If we are able to go from 16,210 to 1 and treat teachers as professionals and measure their proficiency accordingly, change will happen. Not planting the tree 20 years ago shouldn't stop us from planting it today.

simplicity

2009-11-04T16:57:27-08:00

Have you noticed that the more America cares about something, the more she screws it up?

From education to healthcare to crime to terrorism to disaster relief to taxation to foreign policy to whatever; anything that the politicians get their paws on is sure to take a turn for the worse. Moreover, the longer they hold on to it, the more harm they do. The media doesn't help with it's hype-obsessed approach, but that's a separate story.

Education has been at the forefront of political debate for as long as I can remember, but this year 7,200 American students will drop out on every school day. Look at America's foreign policy history of "anointing" leaders (just in the Middle East: Saddam Hussein, Hamid Karzai, the Taliban, etc.); or how Hurricane Katrina was handled; or how many people in this country die of preventable diseases; or the "war" on drugs; or crime-prevention efforts that result in more crimes and more criminals in jail year on year.

The list is endless, as is the complexity of each of these programs. It seems that everything this country cares about must be huge, intricate, nuanced, and over-manned. If it isn't we don't care enough. If we don't throw enough money at it, we're not really committed. Therein lies the rub, the fallacy, and our failure.

What can be done to create a more productive system? Whatever it is, it's for sure not as simple as I'm about to make it. Or is it? Is that our problem? We like complexity? It's much easier to hide (or hide things) in a tree/bush/shrub/etc.-ridden forest than in a less-cluttered place like an empty parking lot. Ask people in the government and they will affirm that it's an incredibly complex and nuanced thing - this is why the 2008 Federal Budget numbered 2,200 pages.

Warren Buffet once said that "business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective." Most corporations and governments are rife with business school graduates. Maybe not such a good thing... We should not take this idea that complexity is good, inevitable, and to be cherished as truth or acceptable.

What if three things were to change:

Spend well - most budgets are funded based on LOBA (lower of budget or actual), which is fine when you have a ton of money and no accountability. It favors those who spend, not those who do. What if this changed - budgets are now zero-based (start from scratch), and funded based on outcomes. There will be multi-year projects that need to maintain funding, but they should be assessed based on what got done in the current year and whether it's time to increase, reduce, or cut the investment. The goal should be (for the 1st year) a budget that is 10% the size of the current one - 220 pages.
Rewarding completion - why don't things stop in government? So many projects (largely due to #1) go on and on and on, just because departments measure success based on funding; and cutting things admits a need for less money. We should reward good completion - it could be as simple as a bonus (to the government employees, not the contractors) for finishing a project on time, on budget, and closing up that shop. Those people should be first in line for the next cool thing to happen, because they got it done the last time. I'm not sure what the real goal should be, but my gut says 80% of programs 20 years or older should be cut, and 20% of programs younger than 20 years should be cut - every year.
Being accountable for less - this is big. I've never seen any successful project get done when it had more than three objectives. In fact, the most successful ones have just one. When you try and do everything for everyone, you end up doing nothing for anyone. We must only fund programs that have a clear, singular, time-limited objective. It's true that some things are not time-limited - defense or social security come to mind - and that's fine, they should be the exceptions. The goal should be for every project to have a clear, specific and timely outcome. If it doesn't, it doesn't get funded.

I know I've focused solely on money, but look at how things get done in government, it boils down to he who has the $$ has the power. Let's temper that power a bit...

democracy

2009-11-01T01:20:39-08:00

Leonard Cohen is one of my favorite artists - he is a brilliant poet and a great entertainer - I was (ironically) listening to Democracy as I was reading the news:

It's coming to America first,
the cradle of the best and of the worst.
It's here they got the range
and the machinery for change
and it's here they got the spiritual thirst.
It's here the family's broken
and it's here the lonely say
that the heart has got to open
in a fundamental way:
Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

The NY Times reported that Dede Scozzafava (R) suspended her candidacy for an upstate New York Congress seat this weekend. Scozzafava's support of gay and abortion rights caused conservative interest groups to embark on an extensive radio and advertising campaign against her (despite he being a fellow Republican). Without missing a beat, the RNC switched its support to a more "mainstream" conservative candidate, but they never consulted the district in question, which of course is upset because the new candidate is a national choice and not a local one.

This is not about calling out the Republican party - this could just as easily have happened with the Democrats if a candidate wasn't "on board" with one of their core issues.

I'm not an alarmist, but the first thing I thought of after reading this article was these words: "Our job as Americans and as Republicans is to dislodge the traitors from every place where they've been sent to do their traitorous work." -- As spoken by Senator Joseph McCarthy in a 1952 speech at the Republican National Convention.

Those were complex times, when fear prevailed in the face of a very scary enemy and the government felt empowered to do whatever was necessary to win. Sound familiar? As today (with Newt Gingrich in the NY Times article), there were cautionary voices that spoke out, most notably:

Sir, I detest, I abhor their [communists'] philosophy, but I detest more than that their tactics, which are those of the fifth column, and are dishonest, but at the same time I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment. I still think that democracy can do it.
–Ronald Reagan, testifying to HUAC as president of the Screen Actors Guild (1947)

It's easy to understand why the conservative Republican community is so bent on protecting itself. After years of dominance, the last months have been a struggle. When you face this kind of test, you think about what got you here (your last win) and try to recreate it or protect it. In the corporate world, it's strategic entrenchment - where a company tries to milk its cash cows to the last drop, forgetting how they began in the first place, and as a result allowing others to eat their lunch, their dinner, and future meals as well.

A set of principles galvanized a group of people to form the Republican party. If I were in their leadership today, I would remember that moving away from a successful approach is incredibly difficult, and requires serious conviction. But the alternative is someone else eating your lunch, dinner and all your future meals...

As Cohen said:

Sail on, sail on
O mighty Ship of State!
To the Shores of Need
Past the Reefs of Greed
Through the Squalls of Hate
Sail on, sail on, sail on, sail on.

antitrust

2009-10-29T09:52:28-07:00

Does human nature dictate that we don't trust each other? It seems that way. While it is true that communities can form and have each others' backs, the vast majority of society seems bent on believing and expecting the worst of its people.

This is why we have police officers, FBI/CIA/DEA/NSA/TSA/XXX agents, a vast military machine, and even a division at the US Department of Justice that focuses solely on corporate antitrust. Schools have metal detectors, airports have ridiculous security procedures - it goes on. As a politician, you have to show that you are tough on crime, promoting your prosecutorial record (or in some states how many people you've put on death row). Have you ever heard a politician campaign on the fact that they have less people behind bars, and claiming it to be a good thing?

As an aside, it's interesting that American (I can't speak for other countries) enforcement officers are measured on their conviction rates vs. their prevention rates. Success is putting more people behind bars vs. preventing the crime from happening in the first place. Implication: the whole system is conditioned to look for wrong-doing (perhaps even creating wrong-doing to succeed) vs. preventing it.

Surely this can't be a productive way to live? This mentality permeates the corporate space as well; with few exceptions, almost every large (> 500 employees) company I've ever worked with or for has a layer of politics and mistrust between departments. In some cases it's the arrogance of not wanting to take a dependency on "them" to do something, so you create your own redundant process; in other cases, it's a belief (not inaccurate) that compensation/recognition is a zero-sum game that requires me/us to do better than him/them - for me/us to win, he/they have to lose. The team matters less than the individual.

Whatever it is, companies as much as societies believe the worse of themselves, and design and manage to that expectation of untrustworthy behavior. Look at HR models, regulatory compliance rules and trainings, corporate overhead, and you'll find that much of that is rooted in the expectation of betrayal.

But there are exceptions, my thanks to Axon for sharing this statement of Netflix' Freedom and Responsibility culture. It speaks volumes about their approach, but it's also interesting that it took 128 pages to tell the story. I wonder if one statement might have sufficed:

"We hired you because we believe in you, share your passion for doing great things, and feel your belief in us. All we ask is that you always keep our shared goal for greatness at the front of your mind and do the right thing."

Is it possible that if I trust you, you will feel empowered by that trust and allow the better angels of your nature to prevail? We do this in places like airports where we ask a stranger to watch our bags for a minute. Parents do this when entrusting their children to babysitters. Team sport athletes do this because they know they have to act as one and trust in each other in order to win. Netflix does this.

What will it take to do it more broadly? I think it boils down to one thing - the imposition of a shared accountability. This might not stop all untrustworthy behavior, but from what I've read of organizational behavior and crowd theories (like Wisdom of Crowds), it is possible to move the needle towards less oversight but better outcomes through self- and team-policing. Look at most smaller organizations, and especially those where each employee has some kind of equity stake in the company and you see this how well this can work. Is it possible that size does matter? That once you hit a certain size trust just begins to fade? I can't believe this (that's the Pollyanna in me, I know) - I think we can design organizations and even communities that are pro-trust.

It's a matter of will.

content, bandwidth and lunch

2009-10-25T22:41:21-07:00

Marshall McLuhan was right - the medium is the message.

In almost every case, those that thought content was king were proven wrong. From analog modems (remember baud rates?) to DSL to Cable to FIOS, people routinely (and happily) pay a premium for bandwidth, but they absolutely hate to pay for content.

Think back to the days of the original Napster and Kazaa - if I had been one of those that used either service, my thought process was simple: "I hate paying for content, but I don't mind paying as much or more than $100/month for bandwidth." I may only download 50 songs in a month but I'm still going to be happy with my killer bandwidth vs. having paid $50 for music.

These days people actually pay for multiple sources of bandwidth - I have broadband at home, a data plan for my phone (and a voice plan) and then also pay for hot spots when the need arises. But I still dislike paying for content, I do use Pandora/Hulu, etc. and will buy content, though grudgingly.

Mark Cuban wrote brilliantly about the DVR vs. internet video. In it he talks about how in their typically narrow-minded (the only thing I know is a hammer so everything looks like a nail) mentality, media companies want cable companies to eliminate or cripple DVRs because they allow viewers to avoid commercials. This perspective is shared by most if not all content publishers. They're crazy!

You know others are progressively eating more of your lunch and yet all you want to do is hang on to the meager scraps you have now? Why?

Digitization has altered the equation for publishers - they had the corner on both the medium and the message, but now anyone can distribute content (we haven't even talked about bit torrent) and most people can publish without needing an "official" publisher.

From music to video to books, each publishing machine has attempted to preserve its original business in the hopes of extracting yet one more drop of revenue. But in trying to preserve history, they're losing sight of the future.

People are willing to pay for access, but content ...not so much. Content is less-valued - not just in publishing, but also pharmaceuticals with generics, with clothing and jewelry and knock-offs, etc.

Here's the thing - digitization increases profitability. Manufacturing costs drop dramatically (no physical bits), distribution costs drop dramatically (no bits, no inventory, no returns), cost of sales drops dramatically (eliminate the middle-man), and market size increases dramatically (direct to every customer on the planet, no retail constraints).

If you had all four of these factors beckoning you, why not go that way? Why not actively pursue tomorrow instead of trying to live in yesterday?

Because the greatest predictor of future failure is past success.

corporate therapists

2009-10-19T18:00:17-07:00

Are you a fanatic about a sports team? If so, chances are you are among hundreds if not thousands who share that same passion and zeal. When you are with your "kind" (at the arena or stadium or in a bar), it's like a feeding frenzy. The crowd is a self-fulfilling prophecy; it reveres those who have been fans forever; who were actually there when XXXX did YYYY to ZZZZ; those who know all the stats and the history; and who have been there through thick and thin. Newcomers are viewed skeptically until they "prove" their loyalty, and "woe betide anyone who walks into our house wearing that [hated team X] shirt!"

If you're an "outsider" who happens into a bar at game-time, having a drink or a meal can be a rather odd experience. The intensity level during critical moments, the superstition, the insider lingo, the "us" and "them" stuff, etc. are certainly freakish, and may put you off that team forever.

Will you be able to find the truth about that team's ability/potential/etc. from those in that room? In Seth Godin's post about true believers and the truth, he said: "the truth of the market is that the products and services that win ... are rarely the products and services that are beloved without reservation by the true believers." Well said!

When I'm looking to buy a new product, the research I do online is equally about its capabilities (features, specifications, etc.) and about finding people who didn't like it, to understand what I'm really getting into. It's always easy to find those that really liked it, and who with their cognitive dissonance, want others to vindicate their decision, by joining the "team" and buying. I want the critic as well.

Cults are formed by those who blindly pursue a value proposition that may or may not be real. Their belief in the proposition overrides their ability to see clearly.

There's this interesting dynamic in "viral" marketing - everyone searches for mavens to advocate their product, but the real successes are when the mavens are a surprise. When the people who like it are the ones that "shouldn't" or ones that once decried it. They're most "legitimate" and most convincing.

The most powerful champion for your product is always the convert and not the lifer. The lifer is only able to talk to other lifers - and let's face it they don't have to be sold to anymore.

If you want to expand the size of your pie, you have to reach those that don't share your passion. The ones you already have need a different level and type of service.

This type of myopia also affects corporations. If you've drunk the Kool-Aid to the point where your world-view is utterly tainted, you simply can NOT make good decisions. Your vestedness impedes you from seeing the truth about your product, your competitors, or your customers. It absolutely prevents you from acknowledging (or even recognizing) any disruptive forces.

Many organizations view employees who use competitors' products as traitors (drinking Coke as a Pepsi employee); I'm all for passionate employees that care deeply about what they do and where they work, but surely there's an inherent flaw in only surrounding yourself with lemmings and sycophants? Surely you don't want to dis your customers by decrying what they also use/buy? How will you ever adapt, evolve and be successful over time?

Give me the objective skeptic over the fanatic every day - she's the one that I want to listen to. I want to know how the outsider critically assesses what I have, how I market and sell it, and what I'm building next. More critically, I want that objective outsider to help de-tint my glasses so I can see my customers, my marketplace, and my future with clarity and truth.

In life, many people go to a therapist for this type of objective perspective; at work, this is more difficult. I've only met one true management consultant in my life - Peter Drucker - a person who did not color his views for anyone, and certainly did not shape his PowerPoint presentation to please the customer, and ensure future business by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear, with just that mild hint of edginess (like using a black background) to be "credible."

This might not matter so much with sports, which is mere entertainment. But it sure does matter with work, with life, with business...

Do you have Kool-Aid drinking requirements at your company? Are people "rewarded" for strict adherence to the religion? Do people get punished for "straying"? Do you really know what's going on outside your walls?

Who's your corporate therapist?

achieve

2009-10-18T23:21:44-07:00

I recently attended a presentation by Richard Barth (CEO of the KIPP Foundation) where he talked about the 82 KIPP schools they've built since 1995, and their vision and plans for the future. I've also had the pleasure of hanging out with two other leaders of schools in the last few months - Bill Kurtz of Denver School of Science and Technology (DSST), and Larry Rosenstock of High Tech High (HTH).

Each is different, but they share some traits. They almost always say "our," "we," or "us" instead of "my," "I," or "me." Their motivation is not personal recognition but rather the success of their students. Their outlook is more futuristic and forward-looking/inspiring than most, but they have the gift of blending that with operational effectiveness today. They have an unwavering commitment to one thing - graduating students who are on a path to personal greatness.

There's more to being a leader:

You need a great bench - are you grooming those who will follow you? (When I asked Richard Barth, he said he views this as one of KIPP's core competencies - interesting.) Are you creating those who will be recruited to lead other organizations? (I have seen this personally at High Tech High.) How effectively will your organization run when you're not there? (When I visited Denver School of Science and Technology and met the deputies (plural) it was pretty obvious.) We measure an organization by how well it performs when the leader leaves - while each of these individuals is truly great, I can say with conviction that if asked, they will care more about the legacy of the institution, and more the destiny of each graduate of the institution than their own "brand."

There is one final characteristic to great leadership - achievement.

Each of these gents has gotten it done.

But I also know none of them are satisfied - there are many more children to serve.

Is there more? Yes. Meet the people that work at KIPP, DSST and HTH and you'll see a perfect example of yet one more dimension of leadership - they are able to bring people to the table who are amazing, committed, brilliant and relentless about their students' destinies. They each feel empowered, supported and impelled to do great things. And you can meet each group and know which leader each works for. Each leader has a distinct personality and their people embrace it wholeheartedly.

It is this last that is most magical to me - the ability to attract great teachers and create this powerful ethos. Hiring a great leader is the most crucial factor in creating a successful school - now we just have to find them.

tribal self-preservation

2009-10-14T11:19:08-07:00

Our DNA prioritizes self-preservation (fight/flight, procreation, etc.) - this is human-nature. "Self" goes pretty far - we see this behavior extend to the family unit, or even the community, and in the case of larger threats, to entire nations (witness 9-11). We also see this in less urgent situations like team sports and at work.

Does self-preservation ever lead to self-destruction?

At work, management sometimes bands together and starts listening more to themselves and ignoring the truth from the trenches even when the source is their own employees. This can lead to strategic myopia or the grasping of scarily flimsy straws. The team ends up feeding off of its cognitive dissonance vs. facing reality. This might be sustainable in the short term (possibly because they're riding their own inertia + euphoria), but it will fall down at some point.

Scott McLeod pointed to an article on the end of teacher sameness and loyalty, which predicts that teachers unions' hold will erode as teachers' roles get more varied (flaunting the unions' goal of a totally consistent and standard teaching remit); in time, they'll just fade away as fewer teachers "fit" their criteria of standardness.

IMO he is overlooking the fact that a lot of the power of unions actually comes from the employer, yep - the unions' power comes from the employer.

While It is true that great teachers create great students, it is more true that great teachers with crappy administrators create crappy schools. I've been to many schools in the last 18 months, and every school I've seen that is wonderful has an administrator/leader who relentlessly and passionately pursues the best for their students. Whenever the leader is bad/stodgy/status quo, the school is too.

David Warlick's post on common core standards scorns the work that the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers have published. He calls out this sentence:

These standards will be research and evidence-based, internationally benchmarked, aligned with college and work expectations and include rigorous content and skills.

Wow - that sounds really good, doesn't it? When David dug deeper, he found that the detail was an amalgam of existing, 20th century ideas. No new news at all.

The "employers" that wrote this appeared to prioritize self-preservation (getting reelected or reappointed) over the best for students. To get re-upped, they need the unions' (most powerful voting bloc) support. By writing a sound byte like the one above, and then putting the same old stuff in the fine print, they preserve themselves and their fellow tribe members, the unions.

The "tribe" seeks the appearance of driving change, but the reality of preserving the status quo.

Teach for America is small - 7,300 TFA teachers out of 6.8 million total - but their effect is huge. We all know the acronym, and teachers and unions are paying attention and changing behavior.

What's the TFA equivalent for Principles and Superintendents? Is it Charter schools? They are almost always the brainchild of a visionary, but the "tribe" scorns if not reviles them. Is it money? America spends more per student than most countries - it hasn't made a difference. It's not shame or guilt (that just strengthens their resolve).

What if Superintendents were paid exactly the same wage (in Massachusetts for example, they make $144k/year) as their lowest paid teacher but budgets had to stay the same or go down? Would that weed out those who were less committed? Would it create a massive gap in leadership? Would anyone notice?

advocacy

2009-10-10T11:38:57-07:00

I had a brilliant conversation last night with two public school teachers. We talked about so many things, but invariably it came down to our education system and what can be done about it.

As I write this, I'm watching the Bob Dylan 30th Anniversary tribute DVD, and Stevie Wonder is singing "Blowin' in the Wind" - interesting coincidence?

In Dylan's words:

There ain’t too much I can say about this song except that the answer is blowing in the wind. It ain’t in no book or movie or TV show or discussion group. Man, it’s in the wind—and it’s blowing in the wind. Too many of these hip people are telling me where the answer is but oh I won’t believe that. I still say it’s in the wind and just like a restless piece of paper it’s got to come down some ...But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know ...and then it flies away I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their heads away when they see wrong and know it’s wrong. I’m only 21 years old and I know that there’s been too many ...You people over 21, you’re older and smarter. --Bob Dylan, Sing Out! 1962

The song talks about oppression, being trodden upon, and injustice; most people connect that (as Stevie Wonder did) to civil rights, Vietnam, apartheid, Watergate, global starvation, etc., but as my two teachers affirmed, we forget the injustices that are befalling our students and teachers in schools across America. Who's singing about them?

One (recently moved to Washington State) said that she was forced to join the union - "they just stood over me and refused to leave until I signed the form." They wouldn't even let her take it home to read it. That kind of coercion can't be right? How is it that an organization founded in the spirit of advocacy for the downtrodden can be so oppressive?

Both (widely acknowledged by students and parents as great teachers) talked at length and with passion about how difficult it is to really do what's right in the classroom. They talked about how difficult it will be for them if they're accountable for individual student performance when they can't control the quality of the students they get, whether those students might just be resigned to life in a gang or joining the Army and dying in Iraq. In that scheme of things, how much does school really matter? How are they to be held accountable for that student's results? How are they to teach 10th grade English when the student's incoming reading proficiency is grade 3? Here's the worst one - if they do get singled out in any way (by the community, other outside agencies for some exceptional work), they're totally ostracized by their peer teachers!

No spirit of advocacy or camaraderie here at all. A clear sign of siege mentality. It's no wonder so many prefer the charter school model, and it's no wonder (though it is a crime) that unions violently oppose charters.

What would they change? First - we don't need the unions anymore - they're slowing us down; they're lowering our standing. Lawyers, doctors, other professionals don't have unions, the fact that we do makes us less - we are as important [I argue more important], and we should govern and represent ourselves appropriately. We also need to get rid of unions because tenure is killing our profession - it's the biggest impediment to change. [How often do you hear a teacher say that???]

Second - we need to rethink how principles are hired - it's really two jobs - the visionary (critical) and the operations manager (equally critical, but fundamentally different). It should be two people who work in partnership vs. one person who inevitably defaults to the operations side, causing us to lose out on any kind of evolved thinking, policy or practice. We lose out on an environment that is enriched and collaborative and passionate and challenging.

Third - we need to rationalize the structure - there is no clarity in the Constitution about where responsibility for Education lies; by default it goes to the States, but let's face it the Feds are pretty involved, and so are districts, etc. This is a mess. It's not about salaries (teachers don't teach for the money), it's about a coherent, equitable (every student in the country should have the same opportunity for an education), and consistent system that focuses first on honoring and doing the best we can for our children, and second but equally important, on helping prepare them for their futures. We need one system; we need a new Amendment.

Where are our true advocates? Who is really standing up for teachers like these two (and their peers around the world)?

To the presidents of the NEA, AFT, Secretary Arne Duncan and President Obama: mark these words by Dylan (now sung brilliantly by Tracy Chapman on the DVD):

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Dont stand in the doorway
Dont block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
Theres a battle outside
And it is ragin.
Itll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin.