The Poway School District is building a new PK-8 school known as the "Design 39 Campus". The school itself is focused on revolutionizing learning, so we take it as a great compliment that the principal and staff are coming to LASD to talk with us about how we do staff development. Staff from Milpitas are also planning to attend the meetings.
This isn't a "big" thing, but it's important for folks to understand
that LASD is out there on the leading edge. I've spoken previously
about how other schools seek to learn more about our practices and roll
them into their own programs. That's part of what we do as a public
entity- we share best practices. Welcome, Poway, and Milpitas! We hope to learn from you also, and to exchange exciting ideas.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
MacGyver vs. Bond (Thoughts from Blach)
One of the interesting things about being on the Board is that I get to see the weekly newsletters from all of our schools. Sandra McGonagle over at Blach always has an inspring story to lead off her newsletter. I've asked her permission and may occasionally share some of her thoughts, because she's really tuned in to what's going on in kids. I loved this one because I think it speaks to the change in how we need to prepare our students for the real world..
Sandra
Blach Banner News
09.26.13
Dear Blach Families,
Not sure if you know this, but I am a pop culture junkie. I love clever references and was recently thrilled to watch a TED talk about the problem solving skills
our kids need today that had a great link to two of my favorite pop
culture icons, 007 and MacGyver. Marc Chun, an Education Program Officer
at the Hewlett Foundation, gave a convincing talk about the need for
our kids to be able to transfer their learned skills and knowledge
throughout life to solve problems.
When we look at the problem solving skills of James Bond, they are fairly predictable. At the beginning of each film, Q gives Bond a few nifty new tools.
It might be an exploding pen, decoding device, or a tape recorder
hidden in a camera. At some point throughout the movie, each of these
tools is used just in the nick of time. From my experience, this is how
much of the problem solving experience at school works. Students might
be taught a new strategy or skill and then be given a problem to solve.
It’s effective and necessary, but it’s not that exciting.
Cut to MacGyver now. Mac always had a Swiss Army knife and some basic supplies on him, but his genius was in the area of creative thinking. When a problem arose, he was quick on his feet to scan his surroundings and jerry rig some random supplies
into something that saved the day. Our kids need to know how to solve
problems in this way as well. They should have an entire tool kit of
skills and knowledge to choose from and use what works best to solve the
problem at hand. In my opinion, this is much more real world than the
world of Bond.
Here’s to having both 007 and MacGyver skills!
Sandra
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Thanks for the support
Over the past 24 hours I've heard from a number of people who wanted to express their outrage at the BCS press release issued yesterday. People who attended the meeting know I didn't say what BCS alleges. (For those who didn't attend, the video is up on the District website.) I reached out to BCS yesterday for confirmation of the release, but they have not replied. In any case, I appreciate the words of encouragement from so many folks. Trust me, my skin is thick enough that this kind of crap is annoying, but it won't dissuade me from taking the right path.
Some have suggested that I should take legal action against BCS. I haven't made up my mind yet. The press release contains intentionally false and misleading statements. Frankly, I thought that our community was above such smear campaigns.
Regardless of their poor handling of me in the press release, I'm much more concerned about the quotes attributed to their Board members. LASD is investing a tremendous amount of time and energy considering BCS's request for short-term improvements to their facilities offer. Those requests would have significant impact on the broader community. Lobbing caustic quotes into the public during that process does not build support for their position. Further, the District has been crystal clear that our willingness to support changes to the current facilities agreement are tied to the BCS willingness to cooperate with us on a long term facilities solution. Comments like this do not build confidence in the general public, and indicate a combative mindset from BCS. I can only hope that cooler heads will prevail at some point.
Again, though, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support. It is ironic that in their attempt to vilify me, BCS has triggered a strong showing of support.
Some have suggested that I should take legal action against BCS. I haven't made up my mind yet. The press release contains intentionally false and misleading statements. Frankly, I thought that our community was above such smear campaigns.
Regardless of their poor handling of me in the press release, I'm much more concerned about the quotes attributed to their Board members. LASD is investing a tremendous amount of time and energy considering BCS's request for short-term improvements to their facilities offer. Those requests would have significant impact on the broader community. Lobbing caustic quotes into the public during that process does not build support for their position. Further, the District has been crystal clear that our willingness to support changes to the current facilities agreement are tied to the BCS willingness to cooperate with us on a long term facilities solution. Comments like this do not build confidence in the general public, and indicate a combative mindset from BCS. I can only hope that cooler heads will prevail at some point.
Again, though, I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of support. It is ironic that in their attempt to vilify me, BCS has triggered a strong showing of support.
Saturday, September 7, 2013
It's all in your persepctive
I've been thinking a lot about communication lately- how people view problems, and how their perspective impacts the way they view what is being communicated. In my day job, I run a professional services practice, and this is second nature. If we communicate the same information to a large number of clients, I know that some clients will react differently based on their own view and how the information is affected by where they are in their respective businesses. This really came home to me when I watched two of our teams describe their perceptions of the same interaction. Folks from both sides viewed it through their own specific lens- their role in our organization.
This was interesting, but it became a sort of epiphany this week as I was watching the videos of the first two LASD-BCS negotiation sessions. For those who are interested in the videos, they can be found here:
Video 1: August 27th meeting
Video 2: Thursday, August 29th meeting
There's an exchange at the end of the second meeting where BCS Board members are questioning the need for the detailed CEQA study, and LASD Board members are pushing back. It got me thinking about the different perspectives at the table.
BCS is a charter school. They are, by definition, not encumbered by most of the regulations that apply to traditional school districts. Hence, it shouldn't surprise us when BCS board members are skeptical of the detailed process we have to follow. They don't live in that same world, so they don't have the first-hand experience that compels us to be process-driven on issues like this.
Likewise, their leadership is appointed, not elected. They feel that their ultimate accountability is whether or not parents choose to enroll students at the school. This gives them the flexibility to do what the directors feel is right, and then see whether people continue to attend.
The District operates very differently. This isn't to say "better"- I'm simply highlighting how our operating environments drive different behaviors.
LASD is not a charter school, so we have a lot of regulations that apply to us. It's been estimated that charter schools only have to worry about 25% of the EdCode in California. That means LASD has 4x the regulations that we deal with every day. It is no wonder, then, that our institutional memory drives us to follow detailed processes. That's not to say we don't innovate- we do, and we are very proud of the work that happens in our classrooms. However, we also have to make sure we keep up with the myriad requirements from the State and Federal Government that are part of our daily existence.
The other piece is that we're an elected board, and we're driven by that connection to the broader community. As mentioned above, a charter school is more-or-less accountable only to the parents of kids who attend. LASD has enjoyed an extremely supportive relationship with the entire community- they support parcel taxes and bond measures, parents and community members volunteer as art docents and library assistants and lunch servers, and they participate fully in the process of running our schools. In order to maintain this support, we are very careful to be extremely open, to include the broad community in all that we do.
As a simple example, the LASD Blueprint Process intentionally included members of the public and folks who don't have kids in our schools. When BCS did their strategic planning, they focused on input from existing parents. The differences in how we operate drives the differences in our behaviors.
I'm not sure where to go with all of this. It helps me think about their behaviors, and hopefully they'll understand our frame of reference too. I don't yet know how we can help their board members understand our operating environment (other than continuing to explain it), but I'm going to be thinking about it. In addressing this difference in our perspectives, we might find a way for us to bridge the gaps in our expectations.
This was interesting, but it became a sort of epiphany this week as I was watching the videos of the first two LASD-BCS negotiation sessions. For those who are interested in the videos, they can be found here:
Video 1: August 27th meeting
Video 2: Thursday, August 29th meeting
There's an exchange at the end of the second meeting where BCS Board members are questioning the need for the detailed CEQA study, and LASD Board members are pushing back. It got me thinking about the different perspectives at the table.
BCS is a charter school. They are, by definition, not encumbered by most of the regulations that apply to traditional school districts. Hence, it shouldn't surprise us when BCS board members are skeptical of the detailed process we have to follow. They don't live in that same world, so they don't have the first-hand experience that compels us to be process-driven on issues like this.
Likewise, their leadership is appointed, not elected. They feel that their ultimate accountability is whether or not parents choose to enroll students at the school. This gives them the flexibility to do what the directors feel is right, and then see whether people continue to attend.
The District operates very differently. This isn't to say "better"- I'm simply highlighting how our operating environments drive different behaviors.
LASD is not a charter school, so we have a lot of regulations that apply to us. It's been estimated that charter schools only have to worry about 25% of the EdCode in California. That means LASD has 4x the regulations that we deal with every day. It is no wonder, then, that our institutional memory drives us to follow detailed processes. That's not to say we don't innovate- we do, and we are very proud of the work that happens in our classrooms. However, we also have to make sure we keep up with the myriad requirements from the State and Federal Government that are part of our daily existence.
The other piece is that we're an elected board, and we're driven by that connection to the broader community. As mentioned above, a charter school is more-or-less accountable only to the parents of kids who attend. LASD has enjoyed an extremely supportive relationship with the entire community- they support parcel taxes and bond measures, parents and community members volunteer as art docents and library assistants and lunch servers, and they participate fully in the process of running our schools. In order to maintain this support, we are very careful to be extremely open, to include the broad community in all that we do.
As a simple example, the LASD Blueprint Process intentionally included members of the public and folks who don't have kids in our schools. When BCS did their strategic planning, they focused on input from existing parents. The differences in how we operate drives the differences in our behaviors.
I'm not sure where to go with all of this. It helps me think about their behaviors, and hopefully they'll understand our frame of reference too. I don't yet know how we can help their board members understand our operating environment (other than continuing to explain it), but I'm going to be thinking about it. In addressing this difference in our perspectives, we might find a way for us to bridge the gaps in our expectations.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
API Scores and Student Testing,
This week the State of California released API scores. This annual rite has dominated focus on school performance for the past decade, with parents and homeowners looking to see how the local schools have performed, and how they stack up against surrounding districts. LASD has fared very well in this annual "keeping up with the Joneses" race- we post some of the highest API scores in the State, and we have managed to do what some would deem unachievable- our program is consistently strong across every single school we operate. Our community has taken great pride in this for many years.
The bar is shifting, though, and I am hopeful that it will be an improvement. I see two problems with the current API-based system:
Most folks are aware of the roll-out of Common Core standards. Along with most of the rest of the country, California is adopting a new set of standards for how children need to learn and what we need to teach them. Common Core emphasizes comprehension and skills over specific memorization. The measures are geared towards ensuring students have the skills necessary to thrive in a knowledge economy. That seems so obvious here in the Silicon Valley, but in other parts of the country, it's been a huge debate. As an example, Common Core focuses on having students design an experiment in science over just repeating steps laid out in a text book. This type of shift is valuable for all students, and it's something we've been focusing on at LASD for quite a while.
At the state level, there are funding changes coming in the form of the Local Control Funding Formula. This new bill is designed to shift the way that funds are allocated to school districts while not penalizing existing districts. LASD will come out pretty much the same on the funding side. However, this bill also decreases the weighting of API scores and starts to emphasize other measures that are also important indicators of success, like parental involvement and communications to the community. Close followers of LASD will recognize many of these components from our Blueprint Process. The District often talks about being a leader in revolutionizing learning- this is a great example. Most of the things the state has added to the measurement system are things we specifically called out in the blueprint process several years ago. We are, once again, leading the pack.
For those who want to go deeper on this, there's a good article in EdSource that talks about these measures in more detail. I particularly liked their infographic:
At the local level, though, we're not content with this. We continue to work on improved measurements. The District has a Blueprint goal this year of identifying the next wave of measurements we want to track. We may work with other high-achieving districts, or we may forge ahead and blaze the trail once again. The key takeaway, though, is that we want to constantly improve our program for our students. To do so means finding accurate ways of assessing our position, then making changes to enhance the program to continually deliver better results.
The bar is shifting, though, and I am hopeful that it will be an improvement. I see two problems with the current API-based system:
- We are already at the top of the scale, so the measures don't tell us much at an aggregate level. Anyone with a background in statistics can tell you that the difference between 984 and 988 is insignificant. That is where we are in the current testing process.
- The scores are a narrow measure of success. The current tests measure memorization more than comprehension, and simple fact regurgitation over intellectual curiosity. We demand much more for our kids, so it would seem logical then that we embrace a way to measure whether we are achieving that.
Most folks are aware of the roll-out of Common Core standards. Along with most of the rest of the country, California is adopting a new set of standards for how children need to learn and what we need to teach them. Common Core emphasizes comprehension and skills over specific memorization. The measures are geared towards ensuring students have the skills necessary to thrive in a knowledge economy. That seems so obvious here in the Silicon Valley, but in other parts of the country, it's been a huge debate. As an example, Common Core focuses on having students design an experiment in science over just repeating steps laid out in a text book. This type of shift is valuable for all students, and it's something we've been focusing on at LASD for quite a while.
At the state level, there are funding changes coming in the form of the Local Control Funding Formula. This new bill is designed to shift the way that funds are allocated to school districts while not penalizing existing districts. LASD will come out pretty much the same on the funding side. However, this bill also decreases the weighting of API scores and starts to emphasize other measures that are also important indicators of success, like parental involvement and communications to the community. Close followers of LASD will recognize many of these components from our Blueprint Process. The District often talks about being a leader in revolutionizing learning- this is a great example. Most of the things the state has added to the measurement system are things we specifically called out in the blueprint process several years ago. We are, once again, leading the pack.
For those who want to go deeper on this, there's a good article in EdSource that talks about these measures in more detail. I particularly liked their infographic:
At the local level, though, we're not content with this. We continue to work on improved measurements. The District has a Blueprint goal this year of identifying the next wave of measurements we want to track. We may work with other high-achieving districts, or we may forge ahead and blaze the trail once again. The key takeaway, though, is that we want to constantly improve our program for our students. To do so means finding accurate ways of assessing our position, then making changes to enhance the program to continually deliver better results.
You don't get to be #1 by being satisfied with where you are. You don't stay #1 by resting on your accomplishments.
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