Wrong on Two Counts: Texas Accountability Measures

For the record, I will admit two things before I begin.  One, in terms of student performance my personal and professional goals are not normal.  Two, as I write this piece I am picturing my dear friends across the state in English departments who could care less about mathematics.  I shall keep that in mind as I describe the math parts and attempt to inject some humor.

We as a public school system are on the verge of notification of how we performed using the state’s accountability system.  The current accountability system appears to be cloaked in mystery and unpredictable.  That is because it is cloaked in mystery and unpredictable because no one other than the state has the necessary data to make the ratings known.  The reason we cannot forecast our performance are the mathematical assumptions and the mathematical goals the state has made regarding student performance data.  The assumptions are wrong mathematically, the goals are wrong morally, but we must either suffer or celebrate the consequences anyway.

For the sake of this discussion we must assume there are two types of data, normally distributed data and not.  (OK, English buddies.  Do not roll your eyes and zone out.  This impacts you!)  If we measure almost anything in nature and get a large set of measurements we will likely find a normal distribution, that is, a distribution of the data when graphed that results in a rounded curve like below.  This curve is also called a “bell shaped curve.”  There are many interesting things about this curve, or at least interesting to those folks who need a life and understand statistics.  The average in this data set is the same as the mean.  In other words, there are as many data bits below average as there are above the average.  The highest point of the curve is the smack dab middle of the data.  Another interesting observation about this data is that most of it is clustered around the middle.  Very few data bits appear at either the high or the low end of the data graph.  Statisticians, bless their hearts, calculate how the data spreads out in the graph and determine what they call a “standard deviation”.  The standard deviation shows that about 68% of all the data in the graph is within 1 standard deviation both ways from the middle.  If you get out to 3 standard deviations from the middle there are only about 0.2% of the data.

If we measure the height of all men in the U.S. and graphed the resulting data we would likely find a graph like the one above.  The average height of an American male is 5’9”.  I am 5’8” tall, so I am slightly below the average height but within one standard deviation of the average.  Males who are over 7’ tall are way out on the extreme right end of this graph where there are very few males, and males who are less than 5’ tall are way out on the left end of this graph where there are very few males.  (Just so the curiosity does not kill you, the average height of women in this country is 5’4” as measured when standing up.)  Measurements of IQ are much the same, most of us in the vast middle, very few way out on either end.  Measurements of the height of pine trees, weight of pecans, length of speckled trout, etc., etc. will all fall within a normal distribution that yields a normal curve when plotted.  Parents of infants are almost frantic to learn where their child falls on the normal curve for height and weight, and there are such curves.  This is interesting, but may be profound only to statisticians who insist that such curves be called “normal” and distributions are discussed using terms like deviates, both of which I believe are indicators of the subliminal thoughts of statisticians, but that perhaps should be saved for another post.

The real bottom line is that in nature, a large collection of data will likely yield a bell shaped or normal curve. 

I am not in the business of accepting nature as it comes to me.  I am in the business of altering data, not confirming normal curves.  I seek the abnormal curve.  I am in the business of assuming I can make a difference, we all can make a difference in what students know and learn and apply through our teaching.  I do not want to achieve a normal curve.  I want to do much better than that.  I want to achieve a curve where almost all of the students pass and virtually none of the students fail.  Such data would not yield a normal curve.  If we assume student performance is based on the characteristics of the kids who enter our buildings, if we assume affluent Anglos will be at the high end of the normal curve and poor minority kids will be at the low end, if we assume high IQ kids will be at the high end of the curve and low IQ kids will be at the low end, then we will not make a difference and there is no point in what we do.  We simply teach and each year confirm the normal curve in the performance of our kids.  That is unacceptable to me.  That is why my personal and professional goals are not normal.  I do not want normal!  Sadly, each year the accountability rankings are released we confirm the normal curve.  Rich districts with rich kids do very well; poor districts with poor kids do very poorly.  There are exceptions, but they are statistical outliers and very rare.  We confirm normal and normal is not moral.  Worse, the state makes judgments about school systems based on  their performance along the normal curve.  North Forest ISD had a host of problems, but the biggest nail in their coffin was standardized student performance.  They could not escape the lowest quartile.

Let us talk about a non-normal distribution of data.  Only 18% of the people who take the written test for a driver’s license fail.  That is not normal.  That means 82% pass!  Wow.  Let’s say I want to teach in a way that as many students as possible pass the test at the end and I achieve such results.  If we plotted those results there would not be a bell shaped curve.  It would be flat until we got out near the right hand end then it would soar upward.  It would look like a “J”.  That is our goal as educators.

That is not the state’s goal.  The state wants the data to be distributed normally.  They want a bell shaped curve.  They want to be able to point to schools and say “You are an outstanding school” and point to other schools and say “You are a terrible school.”  Imagine a day when all schools and all kids do well on the test and all districts are outstanding schools.  The state does not want that.  In other words, it is important in Texas to ensure that a percentage of the kids fail the test.  The state’s mission is in direct conflict with our mission.

There are only two ways to ensure you get a normal curve.  First, make the test so difficult that very few if any can answer all the questions.  That will distribute the scores along a normal line.  Secondly, wait until you get all the student data in then determine what the passing “grade” will be so that the outcomes are normal.  Set the passing grade too low and too many will pass.  Set it too high and too many will fail.  All of that is in my mind immoral.

Worse, if my school district’s grades are plotted and compared to other school district’s grades we will end up with a normal curve of how school districts perform.  Wow.  Suppose our district falls in the lowest quartile, the lowest 25% of the other school districts in terms of student performance.  That would be terrible.  How could we do better next year?  Given a normal curve of test scores and a normal curve of district scores there are only two ways to get better.  First, we would have to improve our scores much more than any other district in our group.  That would move us up in the distribution.  All other districts are busting their butts to improve at the same time we are, however, so there really is no way for us to improve against the performance of other systems.  Once in the lowest quartile we shall remain in the lowest quartile.  There are two other ways.  Cheat.  Or, pray that other districts do worse.  Neither of these are moral approaches to teaching and I reject both prima facie.  As long as every teacher and school in Texas is working hard to improve student outcomes and as long as we insist on making those outcomes “normal” we are likely to stay right where we are.

That is immoral.  That is wrong.  Our goal should be to promote the success of every kid.  The state has statistically rigged the measures so that it is only possible for the top 50% of the kids to be successful and may never be possible for the lower 50%.  If teachers and boards and communities really understood this we would all say dump the standardized measures of school performance.  But if we dump those measures, there will be no data to indicate the failure of public schools and therefore no rational to divert public dollars to ill fated and private sector vendors offering alternatives to public schools. 

So, the real question regarding the Texas Accountability system is, does the state really want every kid to be successful?  The answer is clearly “no” if we norm the data.  That is immoral in my book.  Further, if we norm the data each year the opportunity to improve is dependent on the performance of other districts, not us.  That is flawed thinking.  The assumptions are wrong mathematically, the goals are wrong morally, but we must either suffer or celebrate the consequences anyway.  On those two counts alone our system is structured in ways that are both wrong and immoral.

Therefore, I oppose normal. 

Does the C in CSCOPE Stand for Controversial?

I begin each work day clicking on a fabulous website:  www.TexasISD.com.  Joe Smith does an incredible job of scanning virtually every media source in the state every day for articles related to public schools and posts links on Texas ISD to those articles.  I can scroll through those headlines and get an immediate feel for the current issues and topics in public education in Texas.  See an article that captures your attention or tickles your fancy, click, and the full article appears.  So cool.  Sometimes so depressing.

CSCOPE has been a hot topic for a while.  Multiple media are covering this web-based software and almost every headline or opening sentence includes the phrase “controversial curriculum management system.”  Controversial?  Really?  If a controversial topic is one where there are two sides and the topic is debatable, arguable, divisive and contentious then does CSCOPE qualify as such a topic? 

Perhaps, if one accepts the notion that one side of the arguments around CSCOPE resides in the small minds of a scared group who would rather censor than teach, micro manage rather than promote professional autonomy, diminish the stature of teachers and grandstand rather than understand.  I would argue that given the McCarthy-like position of one side of this debate that by definition it is not debatable, therefore not controversial.  Sadly, I am speaking of the likes of the chair of the Senate Education Committee and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas.  These two men are seeking to out-conservative each other at the expense of instructional resources in Texas and teacher decision making.  I am appalled.  I am furious.  I cannot believe we as citizens are not rising up to demand that they shut up and drop it. 

Let us be rational for a moment.  If you are reading this blog post you have internet connectivity.  You have a browser and a search engine.  Could you find information about the Communist Manifesto if you wanted to?  How about Mein Kampf?  How about the Koran?  How about socialized medicine?  How about reproductive rights?  How about same sex marriage?  How about the Democratic Party Platform?  How about terrorism?  In fact, virtually any topic you are curious about can be Goggled and found.  This applies to every teacher in the state of Texas as well.  If you are connected, you can find positions on truly controversial topics.  CSCOPE hardly qualifies as such a topic. 

What Dan Patrick and David Dewhurst want is to remove sample lessons and now the scope and sequence of a curriculum tool used in 875 of 1000 school districts in Texas.  I have no idea how many teachers that represents, but it is a bunch.  They want CSCOPE to die because someone somewhere who views the world through a lens that only sees from the right objected to the notion that some of the lessons where students are asked to think through positions from more than one side were somehow promoting anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Democratic principles.  Poppycock and balderdash.  If a Texas teacher wanted to influence young minds to think as a liberal, a socialist, a communist, then the elimination of CSCOPE hardly reduces that possibility given all the other resources out there.  If you believe that Texas teachers are either so stupid as to not recognize political bias, or are so liberal that their secret mission in life is to “corrupt” the children of this state, then you are woefully out of touch with reality and have no real knowledge of Texas teachers. 

Next will we require as part of teacher certification a loyalty oath to the Patrick official Right Think positions?  Would Patrick and Dewhurst filter the internet for all Texas teachers and block any digital resource available that carries the hint or whiff of thinking different than their own?  If so, shall we call such men defenders of morality, decency and the American way, or shall we categorically group them with Joseph McCarthy where there is a “right think” and they get to define it and eliminate every resource that varies from their own narrow definition.  To do so in the field of education is absolutely un-American.  I find Patrick and Dewhurst a much larger threat to our notion of civil liberties, democracy and the American Way than anything in CSCOPE.  They are censors.  They are promoters of thinking just like theirs and persecutors of any thinking that is different.  They are controversial, not this curriculum management tool.

CSCOPE is not controversial.  Given the way it was implemented in some districts where the lessons were made mandatory, teachers, in my opinion, rightly chaffed at the requirement.  But that is a local management issue, not a huge threat to democracy.  CSCOPE is an instructional resource developed at the request of teachers who wanted to know how to plan, sequence and teach the state’s required curriculum in a way that most likely produced positive results for kids.  If the state did not mandate the curriculum, there would be no CSCOPE.  If the state did not mandate high stakes standardized testing there would be no CSCOPE.  If the state’s required curriculum did not include the notion that students need to learn how to think, there would be no “controversial” lessons.  CSCOPE is a product and a tool developed by teachers for teachers in response to state mandates.  Why then aren’t Patrick and Dewhurst arguing that we should abolish the state mandated curriculum and testing so that there is no need for CSCOPE?  Oxy morons, that is why.

If you are worried about the children of Texas being indoctrinated with wrong thinking instead of right thinking please relax.  Indoctrination implies the concept of only hearing and learning one side of some issue.  I would argue that Patrick and Dewhurst are promoting indoctrination rather than opposing it.  If we only teach one point of view are we promoting democratic values or the same kind of process implemented by Stalin, Hitler and the Taliban?  Further, no teacher could undo the values imparted to kids by their parents.  We are not that influential.  Hopefully we can promote creative thinking, problem solving, literate citizens capable of viewing issues and problems from more than one perspective.  Hopefully we develop future citizens who believe that every American has the right to believe what they want to believe, think the way they wish to think and know that the government will protect them from the possible persecution and tyranny of the majority.  That is the American way.  That is not the Patrick and Dewhurst way.  Do not be fearful of CSCOPE.  Be fearful of Patrick and Dewhurst.  I am.  Sadly, I was taught to think. 

Censorship is controversial, not CSCOPE.

Exes and Whys

Reading my most recent posts surely you, my faithful readers, can discern that I am seeking to understand, share and process my pending departure from Edna ISD.  You also know I am prone to analogies and metaphors.  I am soon to be the ex-superintendent of Edna.  Why?  Exes and Whys.

Two events prompt this post.  I see folks around town all the time, and many have asked in a friendly and jovial way, “Have you got it under control?”  My response typically is, “That is not my goal and it would be impossible anyway.  I cannot even control when I get the hiccups much less 130 professionals and 1500 kids.”  Secondly, after years and years of research inside and outside of education it appears to me we are absolutely determined to do what may sound good to some but what we know will not work.  That is very frustrating.  I mourn for the kids we harm using new reform strategies while I rail against those strategies.

This post will likely be self-serving.  (Perhaps all previous posts have been likewise.)  But in the context of exes and whys I am reminded not of mathematical graphs but of Douglas McGregor.  Dr. McGregor was a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and died in 1964 at age 58.  His book, the Human Side of Enterprise (1960), applied Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory to scientific management and forever altered the way we look at leadership in organizations.  McGregor set the stage for Herzberg, Drucker, Bennis, Demming, et.al. who have written modern leadership theory and analyzed modern leadership.  (If you are at all interested in Leadership I highly recommend the above authors, plus Meg Wheatley, and Terry Deal, especially Deal’s, Shaping School Culture: The Heart of Leadership.  My favorite quotation from his book is, “The heart of leadership lives in the heart of the leader.”)  Back to McGregor:

McGregor identified two leadership styles used to motivate or control employees that he labeled Theory X and Theory Y.  X’s and Y’s.  The question is and has been, what motivates people to go to work each morning?  What motivates some to do their absolute best and others to seek to perform at the minimal acceptable level?  Why do some get a tremendous amount of satisfaction from their work and others dread it?  McGregor discussed the assumptions inherent in the mind of managers and how these assumptions answer the questions above.  McGregor defines two sets of assumptions and answers to those questions:  X’s and Y’s.

Theory X is the pervasive leadership style in much of corporate America, especially in organizations that are semi-skilled labor driven and assembly line product producers.  Theory X managers assume the following regarding their employees:  they dislike working, they are unmotivated, they avoid responsibility and need to be directed, they need to be constantly supervised, they will perform the minimum required and seek the maximum reward, and they need to be offered incentives to perform.  X’s assume all people are extrinsically motivated.  The X’s promote centralized control and procedures and can rapidly develop top-heavy organizations.  The X’s boss people around.  There are more, but these are the key components.  A Theory X manager creates a certain kind of culture, especially in schools.  Though research consistently shows that most people do not respond well to Theory X, it is the most pervasive form of management or leadership.  If you are working for a Theory X person do not expect to be praised, valued, or trusted. 

Theory Y managers on the other hand assume the following about their employees:  they will take responsibility for their performance, they can be trusted, they are motivated to do their best, they seek perspective and influence beyond their job description, they do not need direction or supervision, they assume work is meaningful, and they seek to solve problems creatively and collaboratively.  Y’s assume all people are intrinsically motivated.  The Y’s promote decentralized leadership and promote local leadership with folks at the lowest end of the organizational chart participating in decisions that impact them. 

Theory X organizations work on a carrot and stick basis; Theory Y organizations seek to promote all their employees, find ways to praise and reinforce independent autonomous actions, and worry less about organizational charts.  McGregor concluded that in some settings, for instance large manufacturing settings where most of the work is routine and repetitive, that Theory X is most likely to emerge and may be most appropriate.  (Interesting that Ouchi’s Theory Z, an analysis of Japanese management styles assumes just the opposite and employees on the assembly line are involved and empowered just like Theory Y.)

I am a Theory Y guy.  I assume the best about our staff, both in plurality and in singularity.  I know teachers will not perform better if I constantly monitor them.  I know administrators will not perform better if I am an omnipresent supervisor and micro manager.  I know organizations, especially organizations staffed mostly with professionals, are more likely to grow and succeed and offer satisfaction and meaning to the employees under a Theory Y management style.  I do not believe people improve or organizations improve if they are fearful of those in power seats.  Do I have to become a Theory X guy sometimes?  Sure.  When we detect an employee operating like the assumed Theory X employee, we attempt Theory Y solutions first, and failing that then resort to Theory X steps to remove them.

I have observed trends in my career that I cannot back with research, but will argue that at least in my experience, are most characteristic.  Coaches tend to be Theory X guys.  Band directors tend to be Theory Y guys.  Boards tend to be Theory X guys, and principals want a supe who is a Theory Y guy, even if they are a Theory X principal.  Theory Y guys get burned because they trust, they assume the best about those they work with and work for, and will always be surprised to learn that someone in the organization has betrayed them, used them, or has simply been operating on a personal rather than organizational agenda.  Such wounds go with the Theory Y territory.  No such wounds exist in the Theory X territory where it is assumed everyone in the organization is loafing and doesn’t care and must be constantly monitored to improve.

Plus, if you want to feel like a “boss” you are likely to be a Theory X guy.  This is the classic mistake of first year administrators. 

If a senator feels obligated to determine which instructional resources a teacher should use, is he an X or a Y?  If a legislature feels obligated to design a monitoring system that collects “performance based data” and holds every system accountable because if they don’t educators will be slackers, are they an X or Y legislature?  If a school board tends to engage in personnel evaluations, line by line budget discussions, and prescribes specific monitoring and accountability behaviors are they an X or a Y board?  If a superintendent consistently engages professionals in discussions and decision making regarding best practice for the sake of kids is he an X or a Y supe?  It is very difficult to practice professional leadership using Theory Y assumptions in a world that assumes only Theory X will work.

Theory X folks will promote constant school monitoring, school to school competition, private sector competition within and between schools, teacher incentive plans at the same time teacher quality measures increase.  In other words, the current reform movement is Theory X driven.

So, I am on the verge of being the Ex-Superintendent, though I never was an X Superintendent.  The whys of that are mostly irrelevant because I am a Y Superintendent and assumed those I work with would assume the same about me I assumed about them: people can be trusted to be open and honest, people can be trusted to act more in the interest of the organization than personal agendas, and people want to do their best for intrinsic reasons and respond better to coaching and support than negative sanctions. 

Theory X folks will find self-justification because there will be more and more employees who act based on the X assumption that they are unmotivated because of the Theory X leadership.  Likewise, Theory Y folks will find self-justification as more and more employees will demonstrate intrinsic motivation because of the Theory Y leadership.  Each theory ends up self-fulfilling their assumptions as employees respond to the style of leadership they experience.  Assume the best you get the best, assume the worst you get the worst.  One would think everyone would shift to Theory Y, but Theory X folks have a hard time risking the assumptions of Theory Y.  If you are a Y, you are not personally in control.

X’s and Y’s.

Exes and Whys.

So I am an Ex partly because I am a Y.  I do not know exactly why, but I cannot be an X.

I do know X’s and Y’s.

I know some whys; I do not know them all.

I do know I am soon to be the Ex.

That’s one of the reasons why.

Double Vision

As I lay reading a book in bed on a normal September evening in 2005 the vision in my right eye began to fade.  It was as though a dimmer switch was turning, and good vision became grey and blurry, then all grey, then black.  It happened quickly, it happened painlessly.  I was scared and confused.  I now know I had a mini-stroke, a blood clot jamming the artery that feeds that eye permanently killing the receptors in my retina.  I became blind in one eye in a matter of minutes with no hope of recovery or cure.  Life changed.  I lost depth perception and squeezing tooth paste on my tooth brush became a hit or miss activity.  I walked into walls.  Handshakes are still awkward as I see the other person’s hand floating out there but am not really sure where it is.  I have compensated.  I do not tailgate.  I extend my hand first.  I no longer play catch.  I crack jokes, “I’m keeping an eye on you,” etc.  I began this blog.  A blog focused on vision of another sort.  Though I have lost sight in an eye my vision for public schools is now more robust and intense than ever.

In our nation there are two visions for public school.  They compete and are incompatible.  We have double vision regarding schools and kids, and until our lens and focus becomes clear we will continue to stumble.  Until as a people we decide, and the decision will have to be at the polls, which vision is best for our kids, then we will remain half-blind and schizophrenic.  I personally do not suffer from double vision and never will.  What I see is clear and focused:  I see the demise of public education if we do not abandon one vision in favor of the other as we are being ripped apart attempting from statehouse to schoolhouse to fulfill both visions.  The following is my synopsis of those competing visions.

Vision 1 I shall call the historic, traditional, moral and democratic vision of public schools.  It is the vision that lured most public educators to this profession.  It includes the notion of public service, it includes the notion of doing all that we can to nurture, support and motivate children to both receive and apply an education.  This vision arises from the notion that a democracy will not long endure without an educated populace capable of problem solving, creative thinking, information retrieval and management, experience in and appreciation for the fine arts, and the ability to view issues from both sides.  Those with this vision view it as more essential to our future security than the military.  Educated people are reflective.  For them positions on issues are grounded in thought, philosophy, history and discourse, not dogma.  It is from such folks that we inherited our Declaration of Independence, and an array of inventors, artists, authors, thinkers, creators, scientists, etc.  Public education developed a learned populace, it was valued and supported, and the folks who served therein were seen as servants akin to preachers.  At its core this vision motivated educators to do all that we could to successfully teach every child regardless of demographics or zip code.  We want to make a difference, we want to help kids, the next generation and the future.  We are future oriented knowing in our hearts that the fruits of our labors are harvested years from now, not in June when the scores come in. 

We recognize education as both a science and an art, but most clearly a human endeavor.  We believe that real improvement happens inside-out, not outside in.  Circumstances are different in every community and in every classroom.  Kids are different, families are different, and educators are different.  It is a sloppy, real, goal oriented profession that requires passion and commitment as well as tolerance and collaboration.  We always understood we could do more and do it better, and at the same time understood that despite our best efforts we like the doctors in an emergency room would lose a few.  We grieved those we lost.  Our goal was to reduce the numbers we lost.  The goal is moral.  The vision is moral. 

Vision 2 I shall call the contemporary reform movement.  This vision began outside public education.  It is the vision that most Americans now seem to accept as valid and most elected officials regardless of party seem to endorse and follow.  It assumes that private sector motivations, practices and procedures will improve public education in ways the historic vision cannot.  The holders of this vision push for private sector mechanisms and models to improve schools, arguing that schools must improve and those folks are armed with an array of data indicating schools are failing.  This vision emerged from “A Nation at Risk” and was codified in “No Child Left Behind”.  The folks with this vision promote competition in schools.  They promote standardization in schools.  They promote high standards in schools for teachers and for kids, a very different notion than promoting high expectations.  They promote private sector intervention in schools in the form of charter schools and vouchers.  They promote high stakes standardized testing and the labeling of schools and punitive consequences for schools and personnel that fail to meet a universal standard.  It is a one size fits all vision where every school gets placed on a bell curve, makes a certain grade, or is eventually closed.  If schools show improvement on their measures, then the measures change to re-establish the bell curve.  It is an outside-in improvement based on data that at best is spurious and is more likely totally corrupt.  The model has added so many layers of accountability to the classroom, school house and district that no public school effort is likely to be totally successful.  Even funding becomes competitive and new experiments in private sector education are promoted to siphon funds away from public schools. 

The net effect of Vision 2 has been the total demoralization of the teacher core, a shift in the role of administrators from instructional leaders to compliance officers, and a dramatic shift in the role of communities from supporters of their local schools to quasi experts based on the much publicized data and all the required letters sent home confessing the sins of the school.  This vision is economic in nature.  It is competitive.  It has made millions of dollars for private sector folks who want to receive public dollars.  There appears to be a superficial logic driving this vision, but it is not moral.  The marketplace is not moral.  Subscribers to this vision care less for the success of any given kid and care more for the outcomes and labels assigned than any other feature of the school.  And I believe it is grounded in a deep resentment for the tax dollars spent on educating all the children of this nation.

I subscribe to Vision 1.  I have devoted my entire professional career to Vision 1.  I have worked hard with staff and communities to collaboratively achieve child success via Vision 1.  I find the data from the compliance oriented Vision 2 folks interesting but not convincing.  I will not crack whips and threaten staff should they fail to achieve certain performance levels required by the Vision 2 folks.  I deeply believe that professional educators in fact know better how to help each kid learn than private sector billionaires, lay legislators and school boards. 

It is difficult to be a Vision 1 guy, especially a superintendent, in what is now a Vision 2 world.  The Board in each community, private sector folks themselves, has a hard time understanding Vision 1 because they are in careers and jobs that function in the context of Vision 2 type accountability.  These lay folks, empowered by data, have become the new educational experts on how to improve schools, and it is very difficult for them to ignore numbers regardless of the validity of those numbers.  If the Gates, the Waltons, the Kochs and the Broads support Vision 2, and if Congress and the Legislature and the Governor support Vision 2, who are they to argue?  Schools, however, do not produce widgets. 

I have attempted to walk a very tight line in recent years, attending to the concerns of Vision 2 folks while promoting a Vision 1 learning organization.  In the end, that did not work.  Despite how the community feels about our schools and the staff feels about the support they receive for their professional practice, the Vision 2 concepts are too embedded to be ignored.  Our scores are fine, and I will not threaten or intimidate staff to improve them.  I do not believe that is how you treat professionals.  You do not ask a degreed, certified professional employee to improve scores or go, because the only way to do that is to put pressure on kids.  The classroom should not be a pressure cooker.  It should be a crock pot.  Such pressure to me is immoral.  It is self-defeating.  What one should do, if you subscribe to Vision 1, is seek to support those professionals, get their take on what we need to do, and provide the resources, support and encouragement to make it happen.  Sadly, the “make it happen” continues to be improvement in scores.

Vision 2 folks worry how the system looks compared to neighboring systems.  They want our scores to be higher.  They want all our accountability measures to be at least equal to everyone else.  It is impossible to explain that those numbers matter little; we are set up to fail so that more private sector folks get public dollars, and that Vision 2 is an economic model not a moral model.  They have accepted competition as the basis of judgment of public schools.  They do not understand that school failure in terms of these measures is in no way a failure of the staff and programs.  It is a failure of the community, and that the measures that indicate failure are contrived to do just that.  I do not oppose accountability.  I oppose this model of accountability.  I do not oppose data collection; I oppose this model of data collection.  I do not oppose the assessment of student knowledge and skills; I oppose this model of high stakes, highly secret assessment that determines the failure or success of kids, staff and schools. 

Given this double vision in public education and in Texas, the virtual universal support of Vision 2 juxtaposed with my deeply held beliefs and moral support of Vision 1, it is time for me to move on.  I am hopeful that the citizens of our state are beginning to understand what Vision 2 is doing to our schools as evidenced by a slight modification by this Legislature in the number of high stakes tests.  Reducing the number of tests is not a shift to Vision 1.  It is a political compromise to maintain the commitment to Vision 2.

Regardless of the vision that you support, understand that no system can survive if the leadership has double vision.  Edna ISD cannot pursue two visions.  If I am held accountable for the measures inherent in Vision 2 I shall always fail as they really mean little to me and I am not strongly motivated to achieve higher scores on a meaningless, non-educational test designed for the wrong reasons, by the wrong people, and funded in Texas before PreKindergarten.  That is blasphemy to me. 

I care deeply about this system and have the utmost respect and affection for our community, our board our staff, and our kids.  It is time, however, for Edna to have a single vision.  I will always be one-eyed Bob and can do nothing about that.  I will not, however, turn that blind eye to this vision conflict.  I can help EISD become a single vision district. 

Blink.  I’m gone.

Blind Dates

So many thoughts come to mind prior to my Edna exit, and true to form, I express them here.  A metaphor that has always made great sense to me is the metaphor I use when interviewing and hiring professional educators whether they are teachers or administrators. 

The interview, the resume, the references are all like an arranged blind date with a written profile provided in advance.  Everyone puts their best foot forward on the blind date in hopes of impressing the other.  Current employees conducting the interview want the candidates to know how lucky they will be if they get hired here.  Candidates very much want to impress the interview committee so that they will have a job offer.  We waltz, we laugh, we shine, and we put on our best face.  We ask questions of each other.  We seek to determine if we are compatible, which is often folly because the candidate really will have no clue what it means to actually work here, and we will have no real clue what it means to work with the candidate until it happens.  We are both pretending to be something we may not be for the sake of this blind date.  Often after these blind dates we awake the next day married to each other, contractually bound, connected for the purpose of educating kids.

We will not know how this newly formed relationship will work until we are in it, day after day.  Is it a match made in heaven or do we discover that we do not fit?  Like most marriages, the honeymoon will end and we discover whether we are in a relationship that merits long term commitment and work, or is the core of the relationship so weak that we sever the tie that binds.  We do not know until we are in it.  As you know, we have hired people that resulted in a wonderful marriage.  Likewise, we have let folks go after a year or two when the effort to improve the relationship did not work out.  And some just left without working on the relationship to pursue their own agendas.

I have been married to Edna ISD for 14 years.  That is a long time for a marriage and it is a longevity record for a superintendent in Edna.  My application here and eventual employment here was a God thing.  I had applied for the superintendency in a coastal community southwest of here, and had been through two rounds of interviews when they offered me the job.  As I drove from the coast back to East Texas my guts were churning.  It did not feel right.  Something was amiss in the blind date and I was not sure I wanted to commit to that relationship in that system.  I had already resigned what was my current job because of an ethical conflict with that Board and I needed a job for my family.  I was in angst as I drove north on 59.  I opened my heart to help and insight.

I needed gas and saw an exit for Edna.  I did not know anything about Edna, I am not sure I had ever heard of it.  I exited and drove to the first gas station I saw, stopped and began to pump gas.  On the other side of the pump two men were chatting.  I heard one ask the other, “Who do you think they will hire as our new Superintendent?”  They continued to bemoan the turnover and instability in the system.  I interrupted them and asked if the schools here were looking for a supe.  They said yes.  I left the gas station and drove around town, saw downtown, saw the high school, saw the courthouse.  People waived, people smiled.  I called Debbie and asked her to get on line and see if Edna was searching for a supe.  She called me back and said yes, and the deadline for application was the next day.  I drove the remaining 4 hours to east Texas getting excited.  Once home I called Region 3, the search consultants.  I spoke for the first time with Dr. Julius Cano, now a trusted friend, who told me if I could get a letter of interest and a resume to him by the next day I would be in the pool.  I did.

A week later I was invited to an interview in Edna.  I drove the four hours back here and walked into the interview room in Sam Houston.  The first person I saw was a shock.  I had spent 3 years as a full-time doctoral student at Texas A&M and had the pleasure of taking classes from Dr. Victor Rodriguez, the former superintendent of San Antonio ISD.  Little did I know he was the interim supe here.  Victor recognized me right off the bat and he and I stood there having “good old days” conversations before I even met the Board.  Things were feeling more and more right.  I was growing more and more excited about this date.

I met Jose Rodriguez, Gerald Boyd, John Morrow, Alfred Rosa, Frank Respondek, Bruce Miller, and Tracy Santellana.  They questioned me and I them.  It was feeling right.  They called later and invited me back, and this time wanted me to bring Debbie.  We talked some more.  Jose called the next day and offered me the job.  That was in May of 1999.  They posted me as lone finalist, I made trips here to find a house, the Board hired me in June of 1999 and I arrived with wife and two kids in Edna, Texas and walked in the door of central office on July 2 for my first day on the job.  I knew no one.  I got lost twice driving to Carver.  It was scary and exciting.  That blind date turned into a long and fruitful marriage, and to this day I believe it was divine intervention that brought me here.

Over the years Board Members came and left: Vance Mitchell, Jewel Buchanan, David Loos, Jan Bone, Terry Miller, Patrick Brzozowski, Brandon Peters, Donnie Mac Long, and Brandon Curlee.  Each new member was someone I needed to establish a relationship with as the marriage was between me and the Board.  For the most part, each of those new members and I got along and the system moved forward and the marriage remained in place.  Our current Board is a very different group than the group that hired me fourteen years ago.  For the most part they inherited this marriage and did not participate in the blind date, courtship, or the formation of the marriage.  They arrived with a partner in place.  They were not as motivated to make the marriage work as the Board that hired me.  I remained committed to the relationship; though I think they doubted that at times.  The new members had no experience with long term professional relationships and got antsy.  Though the timing came as a surprise to me, the fact that the Board said to me on June 10^th that they wanted me to go was not a surprise.  The marriage was over.  They wanted new blind dates and a new professional spouse.

Unless they know something they are not telling me, the marriage is not ending due to some infraction of rule or law or misdeed on my part.  It is ending because the ideal structure of a superintendent / Board relationship is no longer working here, the Team of 8.  Rather than work on the relationship, we are divorcing.

State law and Board Policy pretty well govern how we handle dysfunctional professional relationships:  we identify problems, we document, we create a growth plan and give the employee ample time to improve, then we recommend divorce if all that fails.  That is not true for Boards and Superintendents, though perhaps it should be.  If the Board changes and wants someone new they can simply end the current relationship.  Yes, there are hoops to jump through to end that relationship, but a professional educator and lay board can solve such problems if they work in good faith.  I continue to work in good faith.

I am saddened by the end of this relationship.  It has meant a great deal to me.  I feel similar feelings that many do as a marriage ends.  I am most sad that my relationship with many of our employees has grown to feel like a marriage with mutual commitment, trust, honesty, hard work, openness and caring.  I really feel pain around the end of such professional relationships and trust that the friends I have made here will remain so.

We have worked on a settlement agreement, the Board and I.  It is now signed, our marriage is dissolved and the Board will initiate a process for a new round of blind dates.  I wish them good luck.  I wish you good luck.  I will miss you.  I hope that we will always have mutual visitation rights, though I have lost custody.

Thank you for allowing me to be your superintendent.  What an honor.  What a privilege.  What a great marriage it has been.  Now, I must polish my resume, get a haircut and a new suit to be ready for my own professional blind dates.  Where next?  I have no clue, but I trust in the belief that there is somewhere I am to be, working for kids, teachers and a community.  I will know when it is right.  Then I shall go there, commit, and seek to build a relationship and a system as I have done here. 

Yes, I prefer marriage to blind dates.