Board Collaboration – A Necessary Condition
In an ongoing series about the role of the school board in closing the achievement gap, I examine one of the conditions needed for the eventual courageous conversations that will need to take place.
Candidate versus School Board Member
When we are on the campaign trail, it easy to advocate for changes to school district. All we need to do is think outside the box, enter into partnerships with business or the community and live within our means. However, after we take office regardless of how committed to our individual ideas for change, learning to be part of a board is the hardest thing to accept. Ultimately, we realize that we can not solve everyone’s problem by our self.
Why Collaboration Is Important
Board collaboration with the superintendent is one of the distinguishing factors of well-governed districts. But why is collaboration so important? The age of accountability has changed the role of the school boards. As a result, boards need to do more than make policy, sit back and oversee the superintendent. Boards need to work with the superintendent to find the right solutions, ask the right questions, and focus on the right issues.
Collaboration doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone agrees all the time. It is easier and less stressful for everyone, but it is not necessary. A thoughtful board president anticipates and plans for conflict. Well drafted policies and protocols keep the board focused and on task during board deliberations. The active practice of give and take that goes beyond simple information sharing in order build consensus is the end product of collaboration.
Reflection Questions
As an individual can you suspend your beliefs in order to hear others’ point of view?
Is your board able to deliberate on controversial matters and maintain a climate of trust and respect?
Does your community believe the board is working in a collaborative matter?
News Impacting CA School Districts Through September 24
Sacramento News
Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman says the budget-cutting and teacher union-fighting tactics employed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie provide a perfect “roadmap” for her plans in California.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has threatened to pull the plug if CALPADS can’t reliably relay data by the end of the year. The failed California Longitudinal Pupil Achievement Data System is cited as a key reason why the state has twice failed to qualify for hundreds of millions of dollars in federal Race to the Top funds.
School District News
In this tough economy, editorial boards are getting tough on school bond measures and parcel tax measures. The Contra Costa Times gave thumbs down to two bond measures and two parcel tax measures.
With school districts looking for every dollar, the Vista Unified School District filed a lawsuit this against its teachers union, asking for repayment of money the district paid toward the salary of the union presidents while they were on leave from the classroom.
Is Your Board Moving or Stuck?
If you believe school board matters, what are the conditions needed to have a board focused on closing the achievement gap? First, board members need to be knowledgeable about the conditions needed for school change. The 2000 study by the Lighthouse Project of the Iowa Association of School Boards identified seven conditions:
1. Shared leadership – A focus on student learning through a shared clear vision, high expectations, and dynamic leadership at all levels of the district.
2. Continuous Improvement – A continuous focus in improving education, with high levels of involved and shared decision making.
3. Ability to create and sustain initiatives – An understanding of how to organize the people and school environment to start and sustain an improvement effort.
4. Supportive workplace for staff – A supportive workplace that enables all staff to succeed in their roles.
5. Staff development – Regular school wide staff development that is focused on studying teaching and learning.
6. Support for school sites through data and information – Using data and information on student needs to inform decisions and modify actions at the district, school site and classroom level.
7. Community Involvement – A close connection between school, students, parents and the community.
Boards on the Move
- Board members know what is going on the classroom to improve instruction
- Board members consistently express their belief all children can learn
- Board members expressed high levels of confidence in their staff
- Board members talked receiving information from multiple sources
- Board members could identify specific ways of involving parents and the community in decision making
Boards that are Stuck
- Board members are not clear on district goals or how they are related to instruction in the classroom
- Board members are focused on factors they believe are keeping students from learning such as poverty, lack of parental support or societal factors
- Board members do not know how staff and administrators interacted on goals and objectives of the district
- Board members tended to make negative comments about staff
- Board members expressed concerns about uneven flow of information
Reflection Questions
As an individual board member are you moving or stuck?
If your board did an assessment would they rate themselves as moving or stuck?
Does your community see your board as moving or stuck?
News Impacting CA School Districts Through September 17
National News
A proposed ballot amendment to ease Florida’s class-size requirements was challenged in court by the state’s largest teachers union. The Florida Education Association argued the summary that will appear on the November ballot doesn’t fully explain Amendment 8′s effect.
Amendment 8, passed in the 2010 session, would tweak the 2002 constitutional amendment that imposed maximum class sizes of 18 students in kindergarten to third grade, 22 students in grades 4 to 8 and 25 students for high school.
Sacramento News
A bill on the Governor’s desk seeks to reduce dropout rates by changing high school graduation requirements state wide has arts education advocates bristling. Assembly Bill 2446 would allow students to pick from a myriad of arts and career technical education or vocational classes instead of requiring them to take year long classes in arts or a foreign language.
Comcast pulled an ad from the California Teachers Association when Meg Whitman’s attorney challenged the facts in the ad. One day later, the California Teachers Association changed one word and the ad was back on the air.
Just when the Democratic Party in California needs all the help it can get to win its upcoming election battles, a significant part of its base is divided and weakened by internal conflicts and a sickly economy.
Reforming State and Local Governance
If they really intend to tackle California’s problems at their roots, every candidate for State office should read these recently published books. They should provide a helpful antidote to anyone tempted to put forward simplistic solutions to California’s multiple problems – and to come up with some original ideas to move California forward.
School District Impacts
The Los Angeles Times reported on the ACLU filing a lawsuit against the State of California for allowing schools to charge fees for classes and books. The lawsuit raises concerns about oversight of school districts when a state wide ban of such practice exists. One school district responded to the charges by defending their practices. One school district immediately suspended middle school sports since fees were being charged.
FCMAT has copy of all school districts identified as charging fees for classes and books.
Lodi Unified teachers have ratified a two-year contract agreement that includes furlough days and a pay cut. Teachers voted 838-263 in favor of the agreement, which will bring a 2 percent permanent pay cut, an additional 2.75 percent salary reduction for two years that could be reversed if the district receives federal stimulus money, and 15 furlough days over the two-year period. Scheduled raises for teachers also will be deferred.
In Chico, the teacher union feels the district isn’t bargaining, offering only a 3-year deal that would decrease teachers’ salaries by 11%. CUTA Executive Board member Lance Brogden says, “I don’t think we’ve ever had to take a pay cut. There’ve been times we’ve gone without raises, and that’s acceptable. This year we’ve offered up a 4% pay cut, that’s after 116 layoffs.”
School Boards and the Achievement Gap
In filling out questionnaires from groups asking candidates why they are running for school board, I began to ponder if school boards really matter. Look at the mission and/or vision statements of most school boards and you will see a statement about educating ALL children in some way or form. But if you review your district assessment data, the achievement gaps across racial and class lines are easy to spot. What leadership role does a school board play in closing the gap in their community?
Current Landscape
School board, especially urban ones, are likely to be composed of three types of school board members: 1.) aspiring politicians who seeking higher office, 2.) former employees with a score to settle, and 3.) single cause advocates who want to impose their point of view. Not a good recipe for a forming a coherent governance team focused on student achievement.
Trends in public education reform are centralizing funding at the State and Federal level. National standards are being created with Federal and State accountability models.
Path Forward
The role of a school board is changing. School boards can no longer merely oversee the day to day operations of schools. School boards need to be coleaders in the efforts to improve student achievement. While the school board is dependent on the technical knowledge and leadership of its Superintendent, the Superintendent needs the authority and leadership of the school board to make changes stick.
Reflection Questions
Individual
What role do you believe a school board contributes in closing the achievement gap?
School Board
What actions over the past 12 months has your Board taken to close the achievement gap?
Community
If a community member reviewed the agendas from the past 12 months, what agenda items would be directly related to closing the achievement gap?
News Impacting CA School Districts Through September 10
Federal News
Federal monies from the next round of ARRA funding were held up by a procedural process requiring the Governor to formally request legislation be sent to him since there is no State budget.
Sacramento News
A good news/bad news story. The good news. Due to better cash receipts in August, California won’t need to issue IOUs until at least early October, later than previous estimates. The bad news. As a result, there is little reason for the Legislature to pass a State budget.
Reforming State and Local Governance
CalSTRS is underfunded, lacks the typical public pension power to force employers to pay more, and is being told by lawyers that the Legislature should come up with a funding plan. The state’s legal requirement to ensure proper CalSTRS funding, and the board’s own “fiduciary” obligation to protect pensioners, seems to suggest that suing the state is an option.
School District Impacts
Taxpayers in in the East Bay of the San Francisco Bay Area are being asked to foot the bill for California’s economic crisis, with dozens of school districts, cities and special districts floating parcel taxes, bond measures and sales tax increases to shore up flagging budgets.
When a school districts decides to place a bond measure on the ballot, they turn to bond underwriters for contributions, a practice that is being questioned.
Have you ever noticed that when individuals review budgets, the small budget items in the hundreds will get more attention than then the large one in the millions. The reason for this phenomenon is people judge things they can relate to. So a $800 item will be questioned instead of the $8 million item.
News Impacting CA School Districts Through September 3
Federal News
Five East Bay school districts — including Oakland, Mt. Diablo and West Contra Costa expect to receive nearly $45 million in federal School Improvement Grants to reform a dozen of the lowest-achieving schools in the state.
Sacramento News
As expected, both houses of the Legislature soundly rejected two competing state budget plans, leaving California without a spending plan 62 days into the fiscal year.
With the end of the legislature session came a flurry of bills including one to rollback the entry age of kindergarteners and another that targets parents of chronically truant kids in K-8. CTA flexed its power on defeated a Steinberg bill that would have put a cap on the amount of teachers poor schools are permitted to lay off.
Reforming State and Local Governance
Here is a novel idea. Use the baseball arbitration method to establish a state budget.
Heard the Whitman ad about the need to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse where she cites 150 workers in the California Department of Education that are working on programs it no longer administers? Well, there is more to the story.
A small victory in pension reform. After six amendments and a personal crusade by a Contra Costa Times reporter, AB1987 was passed. The bill doesn’t affect the state’s largest pension programs; it only deals with rules for 20 county-level retirement systems but it is a start.
School District Impacts
The Saddleback Valley Unified School District unilaterally imposed an average 13.5 percent pay cut on all of its non-teaching, classified employees Tuesday, after nearly a year of failed contract negotiations with union leaders.
For years, Orange County schools have been slicing and dicing to save money – decimating arts and sports, slashing teaching and counseling jobs, even closing some campuses for good. This year, they’re deploying a new strategy to conserve on cash – shortening the school year itself.