systemic change

I couldn’t have said it better … schools missing a great opportunity

by Steve Wyckoff on January 11, 2011

This is a repost from Because Our Future Depends On It, Deb Haneke’s blog. I think she’s right on!

Will another great crisis go unexploited?

January 11, 2011

For some reason it seems to me that educators lack the where-with-all to seize the moment and make use a good crisis to redefine how we do business. Despite finding ourselves in the spotlight on many occasions, where demands for educational reform were prolific, we responded with ‘more of the same.’

From the launching of Sputnik by the Russians in the late 50s, to the release of the report “A Nation at Risk” in the early 80′s, to the implementation of “No Child Left Behind” under President Bush, our response has been to do MORE of the same when educational reform is being demanded. Add more time, more standards, more required classes for college admissions, more high-stakes one-shot tests, more graduation requirements…. You get the picture.

So here we are today in 2011 with an economic crisis like none we’ve seen in America since perhaps the 1920′s. Revenues from taxes continue to fall far short of meeting the demands of a system that has grown ‘fat,’ at all levels of government–local, state, and federal. Public education in Kansas and many other states has not been spared the discomfort of deep cuts and more are likely on the horizon.

Yet, through all this, the primary response from education has been to try to protect current funding. Very few educators or leaders outside of education have asked if we were to take advantage of this financial crisis and make REAL changes in the educational system, what might be possible with less money. I have long contended that many ‘educational’ decisions are made based on the need for custodial daycare.

Maybe it is time to recognize the core business of education and make decisions that support the mission with which we are charged. In our current system, time is fixed and learning is variable. What would an educational system look like if learning were the constant and time as well as delivery systems became the variables?

Thanks Deb! – Steve Wyckoff

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McPherson Kansas, a school district going the right direction.

by Steve Wyckoff on January 4, 2011

The C3. That’s what they’re calling them in McPherson USD 418. So what are the three C’s, how did they get there, and are they really leading to school change?

They got there through a multiple year process of asking their staff, parents, and community what they collectively want for each student. The C3 are the result of those conversations.

Citizenship Ready, College Ready, and Career Readiness. I have to be honest with you, I was skeptical about how much school change was actually occurring when I heard the stories about what McPherson was doing. Don’t get me wrong, my skepticism wasn’t about McPherson, it was about education in general.

As the saying goes, “When all is said and done, there is more said than done.” I once heard a superintendent say, only half jokingly, “They had a program that was so bad, they had to change the name.”School don’t change easily, in fact they rarely change.

But when I had the opportunity to hear McPherson superintendent Dr. Randy Watson talk about this C3, and provide evidence as to the results, I must admit I was impressed.

If you want to read the whole story you can go to a page on McPherson’s website that describes in detail C3.

McPherson has asked the federal government for a waiver from the state’s standardized test. In fact the date when they would be notified about their request has come and gone several times. But even if the feds don’t allow the waiver I suspect that McPherson will figure out a way to minimize the damage of the state’s standardized tests.

I believe that what makes this C3 so powerful is the focus on each individual student in preparation for their future. I was worried when I heard the stories that this would just be another program disguised to make sure that every student had the same identical curriculum focus completely on preparation for a four-year liberal arts degree. What I heard instead was a focus on each individual students post secondary needs based on their career aspirations.

McPherson still has literally hundreds, if not thousands, of issues large and small that will need to be solved as they move forward. But kudos to them for making a real effort at school change, to educate each student in preparation for their future. – Steve Wyckoff

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My “Educational Leaders” of the year

January 3, 2011

I decided to write this post to honor those educators that I believe are actually doing something to change the educational experiences for significant numbers of kids. So my criteria was, did they actually do something that changed the educational experience for their students for the better? These leaders are actually engaged in school change. [...]

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The myths of standards and standardized testing

January 3, 2011

The federal government, through No Child Left Behind, has set the direction for school change in America. The NCLB act appears to be focused on two issues; develop a set of national standards that are adhered to by all schools, and raise standardized test scores. There is a fair amount of rhetoric around innovation and creativity [...]

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So what changes should be made?

November 17, 2010

In my previous post, School change:  so does Oklahoma get it, and Kansas doesn’t?, I was responding to an e-mail sent to me after my post, School change: Oklahoma gets it, Kansas doesn’t. Part of that e-mail asked the question: Other comments have to do with what the direction of education should be. We keep hearing [...]

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School change: the perfect little world of universities

November 3, 2010

What magic elixir can KBOR possibly be feeding the rest of the education world? How else can you explain the hold that the universities have on K-12 education. The perfect little world of colleges! How do you get a gig like this! First of all universities get to dictate what and how high school kids [...]

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School change: it’s time for the revolution!

October 20, 2010

Schools are evolving slowly. Too slowly. The rate of change in society is dramatically faster than the rate of change in schools. School change as it currently exists is losing ground on a daily basis. Our schools are already obsolete and getting more so every day. As part of the Kansas Education Commission I am [...]

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School change: how we organize high schools makes no sense.

October 12, 2010

School change at the high school level needs to begin with completely rethinking how we organize learning for students. That is, if we want kids to be able to do something with what they know, rather than simply knowing a lot of stuff for tests. That’s a big assumption. Schools presently are organized perfectly to [...]

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School change: the shift from knowing to doing.

September 30, 2010

As I talk with individuals about school change one of the issues that always arises is the sense that teachers get that they are being criticized for not being good teachers. I always try to point out when I talk about school change that teachers are doing the best job they’ve ever done, at what [...]

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School change: some advice to the Commissioner

September 27, 2010

I’ve never been short of  opinions or advice. And I’ve never been reluctant to share either one. Fortunately, I’m not all that sensitive, so I don’t get my feelings hurt when people ignore my advice and opinions. So I want to give the Commissioner of Education some advice. The role of Commissioner, in the minds [...]

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School changed: can rural schools collaborate with their community and economic development?

September 20, 2010

I’ve been involved recently in several very interesting conversations that demonstrate the need for school change but also bring to light the myriad of possibilities for rural school districts to collaborate with their communities to increase the economic well-being of their communities. It can be a rather complex puzzle but let me try to put [...]

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School change: Are we doing anything right?

September 14, 2010

I speak to groups often about school change and I frequently hear the same question, “Don’t you think were doing anything right?” The answer is “yes” with a great big BUT. That “BUT” is this. We are doing the best job in education that we have ever done, at what we’ve always done. The problem [...]

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School change: Technical solutions vs. adaptive challenges

August 24, 2010

In preparation for a presentation on school change that I was doing recently I was going back through my material and came across the work, Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading by Marty Linsky and Ron Heifetz. Their work is really good stuff, and if you haven’t read it I would [...]

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School change: should kids adapt to school, or school adapt to kids?

June 28, 2010

During a conversation about school change an individual made the comment that we’d be fine if, “The kids would just bear down and be responsible like they used to be!” Interesting thought. This individual went on to say that students from foreign countries, especially emerging countries, come to America and kick our kids butts in [...]

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School change: creating the creative class

June 25, 2010

I just finished Richard Florida’s book Flight Of The Created Class. It’s a compelling book, along with his other book Rise Of The Creative Class, they are a must read for educators. Compelling evidence of the need for school change. But I was disturbed …  okay I know, that’s nothing new …  that it entirely [...]

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School change: connecting the dots

June 24, 2010

Perhaps it’s a change in leadership or the level of dissatisfaction with public education within the ranks or educators and policy makers may indeed be reaching the tipping point of school change. Our commissioner of education, Dr. Diane DeBacker, is either demonstrating a level of leadership not seen for over two decades, or all of [...]

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School change over under: How many schools will adopt Project Based Learning?

March 29, 2010

Friday I had the distinct pleasure of listening to a panel discussion by educators from Erie Kansas about real school change. Mike Carson, Ted Hill, Rose Frye, and Steve Oliver engaged in a wonderful webcast that lasted over an hour and a half, talking about project-based learning. The most encouraging thing about the webcast was [...]

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Rural schools: RIP

March 22, 2010

Rural schools may be an endangered species. I’ve written many times that I believe that our model in public schools for educating kids is obsolete.  I’ve also written that our goals in public schools are also all wrong. But if we are going to persist in that model then it will take a great deal [...]

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What’s become clear to a new, yet veteran, superintendent.

March 19, 2010

I asked my good friend Dr. Bill Hagerman, who is superintendent of the Nickerson-South Hutchison school district, if he would write a guest blog post for me. I asked him to write about what’s become clear to him as he returns to the superintendency. Here are his thoughts. -  Steve Wyckoff The question posed to [...]

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