
{"id":11921,"date":"2010-08-12T08:59:43","date_gmt":"2010-08-12T16:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=11921"},"modified":"2010-08-12T08:59:43","modified_gmt":"2010-08-12T16:59:43","slug":"a-once-in-our-children%e2%80%99s-lifetime-opportunity-in-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/08\/12\/a-once-in-our-children%e2%80%99s-lifetime-opportunity-in-education\/","title":{"rendered":"A once-in-our-children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-lifetime opportunity in education"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Steve Peha<br \/>\n<\/strong><br \/>\nIn 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c without controversies or questions or change of any kind. After all, if it ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t broke, why fix it?<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>While some of us like to dream from time to time of grassroots revolutions, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve learned as we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hope we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-lifetime opportunity.<\/p>\n<p>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?<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c these are just a few of the organizations that have recognized a need to deliver to our nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s school districts a new generation of leaders.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not being challenged. The teaching they receive is, in many cases, too comfortable, too predictable, too \u00e2\u20ac\u0153inside the box\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and because many of our kids are so smart, and because they can learn the system as well as they learn the curriculum, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially the older ones \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and chat with teachers, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not convinced that the community with the highest taxes in the state is getting anywhere near its money\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worth. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not just short-changing ourselves financially, though; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re short-changing ourselves as a community, and the costs going forward in divisiveness, apathy and lost opportunities for our children will mount.<\/p>\n<p>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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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?<\/p>\n<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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?<\/p>\n<p>We have before us a once-in-our-children\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s-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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll bet that you want to tell them that too.<\/p>\n<p><em>Steve Peha is founder and president of Carrboro-based Teaching That Makes Sense Inc. He blogs for<\/em> The Citizen <em>at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/education\/\">carrborocitizen.com\/education<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11921"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11949,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11921\/revisions\/11949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}