November 21, 2011

APPRECIATION
When someone you love is gone, you begin to realize, sometimes too late, how much you miss and appreciate them. On October 12th, 2008, Marylin Frances Boughton Evers, my wife, died. That year was the 50th year of our marriage. She had been ill for several years with a terminal illness and her death was just a matter of time. Yet on her death, as ready as I thought I was for it, a deep and very raw emptiness hit me.

Do you look for something in this note that is sharp and edgy, something that might make you sigh? Won’t find it. Or do you read it because that’s what you do when you get mail that actu-ally addresses you and that doesn’t ask for donations?
The heart of the matter is that as you read this Christmas, 2011 note we are together. (Lots of years with some of you.) Ever wonder where all those years go? I don’t know the answer, but the facts are indisputable-those years are gone.

THREE PRINCIPLES AND SEVEN BEST MANAGEMENT PRACTICES FOR DEVELOPING EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS IN WHICH EVERYONE MATTERS

Everyone wants to feel and know that they matter.

PART 1. The Three Principles

PRINCIPLE ONE: RESPECT/RE-SPECT

A. Respect: showing admiration, deference, esteem, and recognition, as in “I respect your accomplishments and efforts.”
Honoring students, parents, teachers, administrators and all others stakeholders is an act of respect. Failing to honor all stakeholders is an act of disrespect. Bashing teachers, parents, students, administrators, and all other stakeholders is an act of disrespect.

This post is a preliminary statement about what I plan to include in a new manifesto on transforming our schools. I welcome any remarks any reader may wish to make.
To send me your thoughts, click on “Contact” at the top of this page.

PROPOSED MANIFESTO

THE THREE PRINCIPLED SCHOOL: A Path to Consistently
Effective Schools in Which Everyone Matters

By
Jim Evers

All of us need to know that we matter, and when we are treated as such, it validates our sense of self worth and inspires us to be fully functioning at our best.

Based on my commitment to help initiate schools and other organizations in which everyone – all stake holders – matters, I’m creating a manifesto: a study/proposal about how to effectively achieve that.

Ed Bales, former Director of Motorola Corporation's University (developers of the Six Sigma approach to quality) discovered a school reality that begs our attention. He called it the 91% factor. Bales and his Motorola team realized that most of Motorola's entry level employees were highly unprepared in math, reading, writing, and problem solving skills. They turned their attention to the schools, hoping to improve them. But in doing so they came to a stark realization: during the years of K-12, childrens’ school time is only 9% of their time while 91% of their time is with their parents, peers, media, and the larger society.

When talking about why our schools are failing, we need to stop bashing the teachers. Why? Here's my gut feeling about teachers and some hard evidence.

GUT FEELING: Most teachers are good teachers, some are exceptional, some are lesser than good, and a few ought not to be in teaching at all. This gut feeling comes from soft evidence of “in-the-scene” observations I’ve made during my 35 years in education.

Most days I post a tweet on Twitter about transforming our schools so that they work well for everyone. These tweets also get automatically posted on Facebook and on Linked. Once in awhile I get a response from someone, but most often I never know if the tweet has been helpful to others or not.

This morning, I wondered if I was wasting my time. There are so many others who are writing about the same thing and yet in looking back I don't see a true transformation happening in our schools. Maybe, I wondered, I should give my attention to another topic. What others and I have been writing about doesn't seem to have mattered.

The revolving door of heroes who have been brought in to reform our nation's schools never seems to stop turning.
Washington DC chased Michelle Rhee (and Mayor Fenty) out the door, and now NY has chased Karen Black out the door. Worse:they failed to reform the schools.

Though your efforts to improve our nation’s schools by improving the quality of teaching is well meaning, it sadly is a throwing of good money after bad.

For well over a century, most attempts to reform our schools have failed or have made little difference in quality. This is especially true of the reforms aimed at improving teachers. If they had been successful, we wouldn’t still have the consistent national dropout average of 30%, or the inner city dropout rate of 50%

A review of the history of school reforms will support the accuracy of that claim.

So the question is, why do all of reform attempts ultimately fail? The answer is that fail because they are narrowly focused. They are not taking the whole system into perspective. That’s throwing good money after bad.

Good Schools
1. 80% of our schools are good schools.
2. 20% of these good schools are excellent.
3. 10% of the excellent schools are outstanding.

Weak Schools
1. 20% of our schools can be considered weak.
2. 10% of these weak schools need to be improved.
3. 10% of the weak schools may not be able to be improved.

Good Teachers
1. 80% of our teachers are good teachers.
2. 10% of the good teachers are excellent.
3. 10% of excellent teachers are outstanding.

Weak Teachers
1. 20% of our teachers are weak teachers.
2. 10% of the weak teachers can be improved.
3. 10% of the weak teachers probably can’t be improved.