Steve Peha
In mid-sized, middle-class school districts like ours all around the country, the transfer of power goes beyond the civil and the orderly to the positively uneventful. Most of the time, no one even notices as Dr. Stay the Course replaces Dr. Status Quo. Most districts like ours run exactly the way their residents like them to – without controversies or questions or change of any kind. After all, if it ain’t broke, why fix it?
At the end of this school year, our superintendent will retire after having served for almost 20 years. It would not be unlikely for his successor to enjoy a similarly long and stable tenure; such is the luxury of running a district so well-endowed and so well-protected from the pressures many other districts face.
While some of us like to dream from time to time of grassroots revolutions, we’ve learned as we’ve grown up that, in schools at least, change comes only from the top, if it ever comes at all. As such, this coming school year will likely mark the last time in the learning lives of the current generation of children in our community that we can reasonably hope to make a difference in the quality of the education they receive. If, as they say, luck is where preparation meets opportunity, let’s hope we’re lucky enough to recognize the possibility in this moment and prepare ourselves to make the most of what is surely a once-in-our-children’s-lifetime opportunity.
It is my hope that we will not settle for passionless compromise, rocking-chair comfort or even stalwart competence. Instead, it is my hope that we strive for excellence. Why do our children deserve anything less than the best superintendent in the nation?
To this end, I hope we make a national search and that we make requests of the finest organizations in America who are now preparing the finest American superintendents. The Broad Foundation, New Leaders for New Schools, Harvard University – these are just a few of the organizations that have recognized a need to deliver to our nation’s school districts a new generation of leaders.
For the most part, these are not people who have come up the old-fashioned way; few began their careers as classroom teachers, inching up the ladder, rung by traditional rung. Most are much more ambitious, much more willing to challenge the traditions that suppress success. Many of these people have been large-company CEOs. They are dynamic individuals now seeking to serve citizens instead of stockholders by bringing immense talent, extraordinary experience and unusual drive to the task of creating transformative change in education.
I don’t imagine that most people here feel the need for anything remotely resembling transformative change. But I do. I see the obvious need, of course, as do we all, in the extraordinary achievement gap we have created and maintained seemingly as long as anyone can remember. But I see it too in the learning lives of even our top students. They’re not being challenged. The teaching they receive is, in many cases, too comfortable, too predictable, too “inside the box†– and because many of our kids are so smart, and because they can learn the system as well as they learn the curriculum, it’s far too easy for them to succeed. They too deserve a richer and more dynamic education that will prepare them more fully for life in the world.
Our district has immense resources and a thriving community of educational experts from which to draw on. We should be a national leader in education innovation; we should be teaching, learning and leading on the cutting edge of reform. But when I visit our classrooms, when I talk to kids – especially the older ones – and chat with teachers, I’m not convinced that the community with the highest taxes in the state is getting anywhere near its money’s worth. We’re not just short-changing ourselves financially, though; we’re short-changing ourselves as a community, and the costs going forward in divisiveness, apathy and lost opportunities for our children will mount.
It is an auspicious time for us, an opportune time, a perfect time to admit to ourselves that we really do want to raise achievement for all kinds of minds in this district, and that the first and most important step in doing this is choosing the right leadership. If we hire a typical superintendent, we can be assured of typical results. For us, that may mean, at best, clinging to where we are – and at worst, dropping a notch or two in the years to come if we are unable to patch old holes, adapt to new standards or respond to changes in the socio-economic make-up of our community. Why take the risk of losing ground when we could just as easily, and with infinitely more pride and honor, seek the reward of extraordinary achievement for all?
We need a new leader with a new vision for our schools, someone who sees his or her role not as a curator of the past but as a catalyst of the present and a creator of the future. We need someone who communicates with clarity and with power, someone who inspires us with ideas we’ve never even dreamt of, someone who delivers extraordinary results with ordinary dignity and everyday discipline. Such leaders are available. Such leaders are willing. Are we?
We have before us a once-in-our-children’s-lifetime opportunity. What will we do with it? Will we play it safe like almost every other mid-sized middle-class district in America? Or will we work a little harder for our kids and our community? In 20 years, I want to tell the young adults around me that when the moment came, I fought as hard as I could and won the best educational future I could imagine for them. I’ll bet that you want to tell them that too.
Steve Peha is founder and president of Carrboro-based Teaching That Makes Sense Inc. He blogs for The Citizen at carrborocitizen.com/education
Hi Steve – you just totally rock, I have to tell you, and you’ve poured that KoolAid straight down my gullet. Where do I sign up to help make this happen?
I was PTA President at Carrboro Elementary for the past two years and have lived in CH for 5. I completely, totally, absolutely concur with your assessment and your clarion call for transformative change. There is no excuse for this community to be anything less than a paragon of educational reform and innovation. If we can’t do it, who the hell can? (Plenty of others, obviously, but we should be in that cohort.)
I made the acquaintance this year of Joe Garcia, another ed. reform expert, and listening to both of you guys really inspires me to make a difference. Any ideas on what a regular citizen can do?
Hi to Margot – we’ve had precisely one coffee together but I hope for more soon!
All the best,
Allison
Allison,
Thanks for your very vocal support on my recent editorial about the importance of the superintendent search. What can you do?
1. Join me in my call to find the best leader in the country — regardless of whether or not that person has been a superintendent or comes from an educational background.
2. Join me in my insistence that we take ownership of the search ourselves, pursue national talent, use the large number of people in our community who have national contacts in education, and personally invite many people to apply — rather than simply waiting for a search firm to give us whoever they have.
3. Join me in my insistence that we clear the decks so the new superintendent’s job is more attractive. Suspend the current strategic plan and agree to re-evaluate it with the new superintendent. This way, the new person starts fresh without having to “serve out” the last three years of a plan that was made under the previous superintendent.
4. Join me in encouraging the board to structure the position so that a new leader can bring in new leadership at the district office level and in the principalships if he or she feels that this is what is necessary to achieve our goals.
5. Join me in encouraging the board to create a job for the new superintendent that would literally be “the best job in education” and to begin a national PR campaign announcing that we intend to be “the best school district in the nation”. The best jobs, with the biggest goals, are the ones that attract the best people.
6. Join me in insisting that we change the district mission statement to: “By 2020, all students will graduate with the skills and the scores necessary to attend college if they choose to do so.” This will attract people who are very serious about student achievement and closing achievement gaps.
7. Support me in my personal bid to be a part of the Search Committee. We have other national education experts in our district who would also be good candidates. Encourage the board to include people with national expertise in education policy and practice in the details of the selection process.
Write, write, write to the board; send a letter to The Citizen; convey any or all of these messages. Encourage others to write, too. Time is very short. I am meeting this week with board members to assert my influence directly on the search process. But we need more voices in favor of the issues I’ve been writing about since January (“College Opportunity for All”) and now for the hiring of an extraordinary superintended (“the best leader in nation for best school district in the nation”).
Thanks for your support,
Steve Peha