Why I Blog

It may seem strange that a school superintendent spends so much time and energy blogging.  I consistently maintain 4 blogs, writing posts for each at least once a week.  Each of these blogs is different from the others, one very professional, one very personal and two in between.  Why do I do this?  What’s the point?

I write because I must.  I awake with a thought, a thought I want to share, but unless I am constantly calling folks I know to say, “I have an idea” or “There is something bothering me” or “I have another way of looking at this” I must find a vehicle to express the thought lest I lose it, or fixate on it.  Hence, I write.  I could email everyone I know, but eventually that would be lost and I would be wasting your time with a full inbox.  With a blog, you can check in and read whenever you want to and I get it off my chest whenever I need to. 

I believe the best learning comes from the lessons we teach ourselves.  My blogs teach me, help me grow, help me clarify what I think and feel and know.  I have kiddingly said “I learn something every time I listen to what I have to say.”  But that is not far from the truth.  Processing thoughts, seeing how they fit in the grand scheme of things, seeking honest, intellectual congruence is very important to me.  I cannot live with me if I am unfaithful to what I think, feel and believe.  Hence, I need to see those thoughts on the screen to verify that is where I am. 

So, it flows.  Over time, it flows faster and easier.  Just me and my computer.  It flows.  I have a sense of where I’m starting and where I am going and it just flows.  I have an electronic folder of blogs unpublished because I started, then got interrupted and lost the flow.  I have more unpublished posts than published.  Someday I will return to those half cooked ideas and finish them. 

Why 4 blogs?  That is about as schizophrenic as I can handle.  I have different personas as I believe we all do.  I put on my superintendent uniform and mask and go to work.  I deal with issues educational from crisis to mundane as a supe, and I want to share those thoughts with my professional colleagues.  That blog is on the district website for all to see so it must be very professional.  As a spin off from that I have deep personal feelings about many of the professional issues we are confronting in public education.  It would not be appropriate for me to post those thoughts on a school district website.  These thoughts are not endorsed by this system.  They belong to me.  So, I maintain this blog, one-eyed bob, where I can express my more personal thoughts on things professional.  Beyond one-eyed bob are thoughts and feelings from my core regarding what I believe, what I really think and feel, and these are not appropriate to share on either of the other blogs.  I write to that blog under a pseudonym to maintain confidentiality, and frankly, some safety.  I have one other blog that is read by invitation only.  It is very personal.  On that blog I express my feelings, my grief, my joys, my failures, my successes, my most intimate and candid thoughts regarding the man you know as Bob, a man who is learning and evolving, and this is my record of my journey.  It is more like a personal journal than anything else.  It is also the one from which I learn the most.

I also blog because I have learned it is very difficult for me to have friends, true friends, with whom I can share everything and trust their honesty and reciprocity.  As a professional educator we need outlets to vent, to think out loud, to create, to process.  Teachers can do that with their peers.  Principals and other administrators can do that with their peers.  Supes, I have learned, cannot do that totally with anyone they work with because though the supe may believe they have a professional friend those "friends" may simply be responding as a subordinate, less than honestly.  I have learned I cannot do that with fellow supes, even those I know and support, because many of them will continue to act in competitive ways, very unlike what real friends do.  With the loss of friends, or perceived friends, comes a deep wound, a sense of failure, a sense of being a fool, and deep sense of grief.  Yet, I must turn to someone to bounce my thoughts and feelings off lest I go off half-cocked in the wrong direction.  I trust Cabinet to give me most of that feedback.  I cannot put that burden on Debbie as that is unfair; she does not know the context.  So I put it in a blog.

(As a side note, I continue to risk having real friends in this job.  It is very risky for me, but the rewards can be wonderful.  I deeply appreciate my new friends, inside and out, who have stepped up to fill the gap, the holes in my friendship cadre.)

The more angst in my life the more I feel the need to blog.  2012 has been a year of angst for me.  I have blogged a bunch on all 4 blog sites.  I am fortunate in that over 12,000 folks have looked at the Edna website blog, one-eyed bob continues to receive national attention and about 4,000 hits per month, and my pseudonym blog continues to attract a host of visits, and comments from around the world.  (Interestingly, next to the hits from the US, the most hits come from Russia and India.  Weird.) 

I believe all of us just want to be heard.  Covey says we want to live, learn, love and leave a legacy.  We want to know our thoughts and actions make a difference.  We want to know others can relate to what we think or challenge what we think.  I feel that way.  And, when I die I want to know that I have been true to my beliefs and I know what those beliefs are.  If we say, physician, heal thyself, we should also say, educator, teach thyself.

So, I blog.

We Are Not an Interest Group

It appears to me there is no end to the number of people and organizations who want to make decisions and policy for public schools.  Now, the NRA has proposed armed security guards on every campus.  The NRA?  A group dedicated to ensure their interpretation of the 2^nd Amendment remains in place.  School security strategies?  School climate strategies?  This is as crazy as Bill Gates wanting to write school policy and lawyer legislators wanting to write school policy and Pearson wanting to write school policy and even a few quirky, rich medical doctors wanting to write school policy.  Everybody is now qualified to design strategies for school improvement.  In fact, if your school is not improving, an outside group is assigned to come in and take a look at what you are doing to figure out how you can get better.  Really?  An outside group?  The message is clear and consistent:  anybody is qualified to determine what schools ought to do except professional school people.  And I grow weary and angry at such an assumption.

School professionals have no political clout.  All we have is knowledge, experience and expertise, so we are not consulted.  We do not have money, and what money we have is taxpayer money that we would prefer to spend on kids rather than on lobbying efforts.  In fact, it is illegal for us to spend such money on lobbying so the only lobbying contributions school folks make is out of their own pockets, a woefully shallow source of revenue.  Not true for Bill and Melinda, not true for NRA, not true for the Broad Foundation, not true for Wal-Mart, not true for a host of charter organizations, and not true for Pearson.  These folks have tons of money and contribute to campaigns to get their wishes enrolled as law.  And most often, they are wrong, or short sighted, or self-serving and they have seriously messed up schools in this country.

Professional educators have watched as legislators consistently make mistakes in law regarding good school policy.  We have told them they were screwing up, but they did it anyway.  Career Ladder in Texas was a terrible idea, we told them, they did it, it did not work, and it was canceled.  Mandatory bus safety training was a terrible idea, we told them, they did it, it did not work, and it was canceled.  Requiring the EOC to count as 15% of a student’s grade was terrible idea, we told them, they did it anyway, it will not work and has been put on hold.  Connecting teacher evaluation to student standardized test scores is a terrible idea, we have told them that and we hope they listen.  Blaming teachers for student performance is a terrible philosophy, we have told them that, they have not listened and we are paying the price for this across the county.  Diverting public money from schools to charter schools is a terrible idea, we have told them that and they are doing it anyway.  Diverting public money from schools in the form of vouchers is a terrible idea, we have told them that, and they continue to try to find a way to enact such legislation.  Race to the top is a terrible idea, we have told them that, and they are doing it anyway.  Putting armed guards on every campus in the US is a terrible idea, will not work, we are telling them that, and we hope they listen.  I have little confidence.

Sandy Hook was a terrible tragedy.  Now is not the time to overreact, put a knee jerk policy in place and make another round of costly mistakes in school policy.  No prescription should be universally administered.  That is true of penicillin and armed guards in schools.  Some schools may want or need that.  Some do not.  It should be a local decision based on the facts and reality of the local school.  The decision should not be made out of fear.  It should be professional, rational.  It will take professional school folks to recommend what we should do.  I hope the decision makers listen.

Chances are they won’t.  We are not an interest group.

Santa Subject to School Reformers!

What if the school reformers turned their attention from public schools to Santa Clause?

First, we would have to set accountability standards for the elves.  How many toys and of what kind can they produce?  We will find out on one day of high stakes toy making when each elf must complete the construction of their assigned toy within a given time limit.  If they fail to complete, they fail.  If the toy does not work, they fail.  Every elf that fails must receive additional training in toy making.  We will conduct this test on December 24^th.

We must look at the standards for toy construction as well.  Every toy should have a common core.  Every toy should have a blue print, established standards, level of difficulty, etc. etc.  Given these standards, the high stakes toy making test will become more meaningful via toy alignment.

We must look at accountability standards for Santa.  His job is to get high levels of production out of the elves.  If the number of elves who fail to meet the high stakes toy making standards does not go down, Santa will first have to write a plan, and then eventually may be fired.  Santa’s workshop at the North Pole can be closed in such a case and re-opened by private sector toy makers.

We must also look at Santa’s own internal sense of accountability.  What does it mean to be “naughty”?  What does it mean to be “nice”?  Who gets to decide?  These decisions are far too important to leave in the hands of a local icon.  New standards must be set for the recipients of the toys and judged by an external panel based on scientific based research.

Funding?  Where does the money come from to operate Santa’s workshop?  Clearly, Santa is on the public dole because all he hires are workers with the same disability:  short.  We must find a way to force Santa to hire non-elves as elves are very difficult to fire.  Perhaps a Santa Right to Work Clause. 

Why are the toys simply given away?  Why are the toys free?  Isn’t that socialism?  We must cut the funding and increase our expectations for the production in the workshop.  Should Santa fail to meet the goals, we will open toy charters who can receive a portion of his money and produce toys that they sell to make money.

After a couple of years of real accountability it will be clear that we need to fire Santa, dismiss the elves, and turn the whole operation over to the private sector.  Surely kids will be happier.  We know the private sector toy makers will be.  It is not fair for a subsidized program to compete with the private sector, and the problem with Santa’s program is it lacks private sector accountability.  Goodbye Santa.  Welcome Charter Clause and Toy Charters.

Ho Ho Ho

I am so Inspired

The violence in a school in Connecticut is beyond description; the pain parents must be going through is beyond imagination.  But I am inspired by our leaders.

First, Governor Perry comes out and says all our schools must update their emergency operation plans (EOP).  Then Commissioner Williams sends out a memo to all superintendents telling them to do what the governor said to do.  Then the Texas School Safety Center published the names of 78 districts that have not updated their mandated emergency operation plans.  Then we interview the superintendent in the only school district in the state that allows teachers to carry concealed weapons at school.  Then our Governor says teachers should be allowed to carry guns at school.

We have lost our minds.  Is there any rational thought left in this universe?  Did the killing spree in Connecticut occur at the only school without an emergency procedure plan?  Will writing a plan prevent this from happening?  Could the teachers in that building possibly have done anything more than they did to save children?  If the principal had been carrying a hand gun and stepped out in the hallway to confront an assault rifle 20 yards away would the outcome have been any different?  Not just no, but hell no!

I should be ashamed instead of inspired.  What kind of bureaucratic malarkey is this?  So the Gov and the Commish have now covered their butts because if it happens in Texas they can say, “Well, we told them to update their plans.”  This is so ludicrous it makes me want to spit.  It so cheapens the real experience of the folks in Connecticut that I believe Perry and Williams should have mandatory empathy transplants and ego amputations.

There is nothing we can do in a school when a deranged man with heavy armament shows up at our door.  If the first classroom he stepped in were all off-duty SWAT guys he would have killed all of them too.  To have teachers carrying loaded weapons in a sanctuary for child safety is blasphemy and we should all stand up and yell so.  This was a freak incident:  a deranged person with weaponry committed to killing and not caring about his own life.  No one can stop such a person.  Even the Secret Service acknowledges that as they guard the President. 

How do we ensure safety?  We cannot.  Life is a risk.  How do we improve the safety of our kids in schools?  It is not by writing plans.  It is not by arming teachers.  It is by hiring more teachers so that the ratio goes down and we know the kids.  It is by spending more money on mental health in our communities to counsel our most deranged and dangerous souls.  It might even help to get assault rifles off the street.  That is all we can do.  But we should do that!  Now!

OK.  Now I’m inspired to update our EOP and send it to the Texas Center for School Safety so I can get checked off the list and not be bureaucratically hassled for failing to save my kids should such an event happen here. 

Deeply inspired.

(Poppycock and balderdash!)

Violence in Connecticut

I am appalled by the shooting in an elementary school that has left so many dead.  My guts wrench for the families of those that were lost and wounded.  I cannot imagine a worse feeling than to discover your child, your spouse, your loved one went to school and got shot.

Schools are supposed to be safe places.  The adults here are charged with so much more than teaching.  We are charged with ensuring the safety of the children we are with each day.  Just as in Columbine I believe we will learn that some staff members were lost protecting kids.  That’s what we do.

Here is what we do not do.  We do not invite violence into our schools.  We do not invite weapons into our schools.  We do not invite deranged people into our schools.  I keep hearing the phrase “school violence” as though the school owns the violence.  We do not own it.  We reject it.  It is violence that comes to the school.  It is violence from the community that comes into the school.  And sometimes it is violence that is brought into the school by one of our own as in Columbine and Virginia Tech.

Frankly, there is no way to make our kids 100% safe from such a risk.  You know that.  Just as you and I know that all the security at airports is still not a guarantee.  Just as you and I know that malls will not be able to do much after the recent mall shootings.  We can do much, however.  We can drill and practice.  We can continue to monitor those who enter our buildings.  We can implement some technologies to assist us in that effort.  But it will not be enough for some school somewhere else.

I pray for the school people and parents and all those touched by the violence that entered an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut.  That violence walked in the door to what was a wonderful, safe place just minutes before.

Help us keep violence out of the schools.

Who Do You Support?

Who do you support?  Do you support Little League?  Boy Scouts?  Pet adoption centers?  NPR?  Your church?  A civic organization?  A social club?  Who do you support?

What is the evidence of your support?  Do you give time, do you give money?  Do you show up for events?  Do you work to improve and expand the function of the group you support?  How would you respond if someone organized a system to gradually demolish the group you support, reduce its funding, burden it with regulations and accountability, fund alternatives to your organization, and set your organization up to compete with other similar organizations?  What would you do?

And now a simple question, do you support public schools?  It is a question we should be asking every elected legislator and every appointed educational bureaucrat.  (To maintain full disclosure, I am an appointed educational bureaucrat.) 

An affirmative answer to the question would imply much.  It would imply the evidence of support listed under the other groups that you supported.  It would imply support for the notion that every kid in the US should have a free education K-12.  It would imply that we expect public schools to do the best they can to educate every kid.  It would imply providing institutional support for the efforts of public schools and for the kids least able to learn and least ready to learn.

I suspect, however, that most politicians and bureaucrats will answer in the affirmative but practice in the negative.  If so, then the follow-up question should be what is the evidence that you support public schools?

Have you supported deregulation of public schools, decreasing the myriad of mandates and compliance items assigned to the public schools?  Or, have you supported adding additional mandates to the institution and turning to schools to solve more and more of our society’s problems?

Have you supported at least maintaining and hopefully improving the funding of public schools?  Or, have you supported diverting funds from public schools to other social experiments gone awry such as charter schools and vouchers?

Have you supported professional educators?  Or, have you assumed you know more about what is the best way to run schools than the pros?  Have you supported teachers?  Or have you argued we must link student outcomes on standardized tests with professional evaluation?

Have you supported the notion that the schools with kids who have the lowest success need the most resources?  Or have you supported judging schools, teachers and kids by one standardized test with sanctions attached?  Or, allow those districts with the most property wealth to keep their wealth for the most part creating an inadequately funded system?

Have you supported collaboration among public schools?  Or have you nurtured the notion that schools will perform better in a competitive setting? 

Do you support public schools?  If so, what is the evidence?  If it is not the same kind of evidence as for the other groups you support I suggest you may not be honest with yourself or us.

We will find out as the Legislature convenes in January.  We are getting strong hints already from the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and the Commissioner of Education.  The simple fact that so many school districts have sued the state for adequate funding should be an embarrassment to our Legislature if they argue that they support public schools.  But no, they are fighting the suit.  They argue we can do more with less, we can raise standards and have more pass, we can be held more accountable, and we can and should compete with charters and private schools who should be allowed to siphon money out of the public school system.  They argue that we need a voucher system so that those who already pay private school tuition then would receive state funding and public schools would receive less.  None of these are strategies of folks who actually support public schools and the philosophical assumptions underlying public schools.  None of these so-called competitive strategies have ever really worked anywhere.  All of them are counter-intuitive:  the competitive market competes for choice among many consumers who can choose otherwise.  The public service sector provides services via tax dollars that are wasted if spread too thin to other alternatives.  The consumer pot is large.  The tax dollar pot is small.  And yet, the push remains to shrink the funds for public schools, then divert money from the public schools to alternative models of education.  That is not choice and that is not competition.  That is merely a funding swap to the harm of all concerned.

It appears to me that the dominant philosophy in Austin, perhaps Washington, is anti-public schools.  Scary and sad thought to those of us who have devoted our professional lives to this noble and most democratic of all institutions in the US.

But for me and my house our answer will be yes, we support public schools.