David Griffith, ASCD's Public Policy Director, recently shared at the Leadership Council's meeting at the ASCD conference in San Francisco the need to maintain the goal to close the achievement gap among student demographic subgroups. 

 

"Such an effort requires a world-class school system that serves the comprehensive needs of children through a whole child approach to education.  The coordination of education programs with out-of-school services is needed so that each child can enter school healthy and ready to learn, feel physically and emotionally safe, be actively engaged in learning and connected to the broader school community, have access to personalized instruction, and be challenged academically and prepared for postsecondary success."

�      Griffith saw a real need to embrace college- and career-readiness standards that go beyond reading/literacy and math in the core curriculum.  "We need to include all areas - science, social studies, the arts, civics, foreign language, health education, physical education, technology, and all other core academic subjects."

�      This requires a "rewrite," not just tweaking, of ESEA.

o   The committee he facilitated advocates for a new funding system for secondary schools and the government's replacement of the AYP system because it is "irretrievably broken" and needs to be replaced with a rewards-based accountability system. 

o   The ESEA needs to be reconceptualized so that the goals for chronically underperforming schools move from punitive and unproven sanctions to an improvement system of access and comprehensive supportive - with high quality teaching and learning experiences that involve all students, families, and staff.

o   Incentives for success need to go beyond "not being punished" to include flexibility in the use of Title I funds.

 

The 2011 ASCD Legislative Agenda can be downloaded at http://www.ascd.org/public-policy/Legislative-Agenda/Legislative-Agenda.aspx.  

 

The Leadership Council met at the ASCD conference to participate in future planning for ASCD.  After introductory remarks by ASCD Executive Director Gene Carter, the council members, including Susan Pecinovsky of Iowa, deliberated on major considerations for the strategic planning, the work that can be accomplished in the next 1000 days, as we seek to author our own future as an international organization focused on the success of students.

 

There was support from the council members to further explore the following in the strategic planning:

�      "Rebranding education" so we are trusted in our communities, by our legislators, and across the nation and world.

�      Engaging affiliates in the planning and implementation.

�      Challenging ourselves for the way we have always educated.  Posing the honest and frank questions that will stretch our thinking and our practices.

�      Leveraging technology to meet the needs of all educators and students - around the world.

�      Focusing on "effectiveness" - the impact on students and their success - by defining the
"markers" of success in education.

�      Collaborating with partners outside of education to meet the needs of children, birth to age 20.

�      Assuring transparency of best practices from around the world.

�      Developing the capacity of all members to influence policy makers.

�      Providing 24/7 professional development.

 

The Leadership Council sees these as the game changers as ASCD moves forward to influence educators and education!

 

The following Iowa ASCD members made presentations at the ASCD Conference in San Francisco this past week.  Kudos to those sharing Iowa stories with the rest of the world.

• Iowa ASCD member Ann Mausbach and her superintendent, Martha Bruckner, shared their Council Bluffs Story on increasing Graduation Rates.  Using simple tactics - like Class of 2023 buttons - and difficult tactics - like work on curriculum alignment - the district has increased graduation rates and reduced dropout numbers.  These administrators outlined 10 ideas other districts could adapt to their own schools.
• Iowa ASCD member Doug Schermer provided a session on "Bringing the World into Your School."  Participants learned how to connect their classrooms to current and former Peace Corps volunteers.  His session was sponsored by the ASCD Global Education Professional Interest Community.
• Iowa ASCD member Clare Struck and a team from Price Laboratory School in Cedar Falls provided a session on "The Whole Child in Action."  They presented and discuss specific examples of the five whole child tenets in action, including relevant video illustrations from their school.

Stanford psychology professor and author Chip Heath (Make It Stick and Switch:  How to Change Things When Change Is Hard) noted that we embrace some of the biggest changes in our lives with smiling faces and our whole selves.  

For change to happen, Heath said, we must align the work of the rider and the elephant and shape the path to make it easier to travel.  Three questions guide this work.

1)  Are you ruled by your rider (the analytical side of the brain)?  

The rider loves problems, and in change situations, observes obsesses over plenty of problems and stalls your progress. How can we harness the analytical strengths of the rider, while avoiding getting bogged down with obstacles?  Find the bright spots, advises Heath.  Take the tremendous analytic capacity of the rider and apply it to what's succeeding now.  In a sea of problems, focus on the bright spots and how you can bring them to scale.  Ask your ricer, "What if we could get there?"

2)  Have you motivated the elephant (the emotional side of the brain)?

Wooing the elephant carries a six-ton emotional advantage, yet so often school seems solely geared to winning over the rider, or appealing to the analytical.  Consider how goals are articulated to students - what's the emotional appeal of proficiency or mastery of a set of standards?  What if schools instead provided both a destination for the rider and motivation for the elephant?

As an example, Heath submitted a teacher in Atlanta who told her first-grade students who had never experienced kindergarten, "Stick with me, and you're going to be third graders by the end of the year."  She tapped into her students' need to be successful in school and instilled the growth-oriented mindset that would get them there.

  

Motivating the elephant is all about finding the identities and goals students care about and using that to get kids to stick with hard work.

3)  Have you tweaked the environment (the context in which change is happening - or the path)?

Too often, when we think of what we want to change, we focus on people, not the situation, said Heath.  Changing people is hard, often impossible, but changing the environment is an easy way to influence and change people's behavior.

Heath illustrated his point by mentioning Amazon.com's very successful one-click buying option.  Streamlining online purchases is an obvious win-win, yet Internet shopping existed for years before Amazon pioneered this approach.

"Have you one-clicked the processes in your school or classroom?" Heath asked.  What fundamental school routines could be streamlined?  For example, math classes with established "Do Now" routines (students come in to class and immediately work for 3 to 5 minutes on a problem on the board/overhead) save 4 minutes of class learning time a day, which adds up to about two-and-a-half weeks per year.

Additionally, shaping the environment can mean eliminating tracking, reorganizing school schedules, or configuring smaller learning communities within the school.

Direct the rider, motivate the elephant, tweak the path . . . these are the fundamental principles underlying change.  "Now that those principles are yours," Heath addressed the thousands of educators in attendance, "the only remaining question is what you switch?"

Amy Wichman is presently a Quality Learning Consultant for the Mississippi Bend AEA, AEA 9, where her primary responsibilities consist of serving as the Iowa Core Lead and technology innovator.  She also is a certified Intel Senior Trainer. Prior to her current position, Mrs. Wichman was the Director of At-Risk Services for the Bettendorf Community School District, where she supervised the Alternative High School. Additional duties in that position included acting as the Homeless Liaison, Safe and Drug Free Schools Coordinator, Teacher Assistance Team Leader and manager of two grant funded programs: Birth-to-Five & Core Team Social Work.  

 

Over the past fifteen years, she has taught at schools and universities including Urbandale Middle School, Ventura High School, St. Ambrose University, and Drake University.  Mrs. Wichman holds a Bachelor of Arts from Buena Vista University and Masters of Science in Education Administration (Secondary) from Drake University. 

 

Her passion is technology implementation and motivating educators.

 

Her pride, joy, and greatest consumers of time are her children, Emma Kate, Evallyn, and Everhett.   She lives in Bettendorf, Iowa, with her husband, Jim, who is an elementary principal for the Pleasant Valley Community School District in Bettendorf, Iowa.

 

We welcome Amy to the Iowa ASCD board and are anxious to learn from her as we move forward in meeting the needs of our membership.  

 

You can follow Amy on Twitter at: a_wichman.

 Better Learning through Structured Teaching Seminar

 Dr. Nancy Frey

 Arrowwood Resort in Okoboji-June 16-17

 

Drs. Nancy Frey and Doug Fisher presented this past weekend at the National ASCD conference in San Francisco.

 

Their presentations on RTI² and Better Learning Through Structured Teaching -aka Quality Core Instruction - provided the participants a better understanding of the tiers of RTI (Instructional Decision Making) and how to provide additional assistance to meet the needs of our learners who are "just not getting it" the first time around. 

 

Fisher and Frey believe RTI is more than responding with an intervention.  It is also providing quality instruction; hence, the RTI².  

 

The message was focused on the premise if you provide an aligned quality core instructional program you will lessen the students needing Tier 2 and Tier 3 assistance.  Frey and Fisher emphasized the importance of their work with the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model and training teachers with the necessary instructional strategies to achieve Tier 1 success (student success).

 

Please join Dr. Nancy Frey in Okoboji June 16 and 17 to experience first hand her message on RTI² and quality core instruction.  You will walk away with strategies to provide a quality instructional program.

 

 

"Whatever image you may have of a preacher's kid, it probably applies to me at some time in my life," smiled Doug Schermer.  Although personal income for a preacher in the 1940's was miniscule, his dad used expensive Kodachrome to make slide shows for use in the church.  Missionaries from Africa and Japan often visited the church bringing slides, pictures, and stories. Thanks to denominational annual conferences, Schermer was able to travel from coast-to-coast as a child.  A church-sponsored student tour of Europe opened a world of opportunities that led Schermer to major in philosophy and minor in German.  "These experiences gave me a sense of service with a global perspective and set the course for my life," he said.

 

John Kennedy's inauguration call, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask rather what you can do for your country," was a life changing moment for Schermer.  When Kennedy created the Peace Corps, the light bulb clicked.  Thus, in the fall of 1966, he began serving as a volunteer in Semnan, Iran, working in the office of rural development which built bath houses, water supply systems, morgues, and schools in small villages. 

 

In preparation for Peace Corps service, Schermer volunteered as a photographer for the college newspaper so he could learn to use cameras and the darkroom.  "I took as many pictures in Iran as I could," he said.  Thus began a life-long affair with photography which today means using a computer as a "digital darkroom" to make slide shows of his travels and grandchildren. 

 

In Semnan Schermer lived with two other volunteers next door to a family with many young sons.  "Baba and Mama Rahbar treated us as part of the family and their sons became our brothers," he said.  One of those brothers now lives in Kentucky and recently returned to Semnan with a set of pictures Schermer had taken in 1966.  The word from Iran was that the pictures showed a Semnan that no longer exists. 

 

One of the volunteers in Semnan taught English as a Second Language (TEFL).  "That was my first introduction to the possibility of a career in teaching," said Schermer.  Upon returning to Chicago, he took classes to earn a teaching certificate.  His first job was at John Spry School on the west side of Chicago where he taught sixth grade for two years.  "For me teaching became applied epistemology," philosophized Schermer.

 

Schermer and his wife, Shirley, share a passion for travel.  That led them to Berlin, Germany, where he taught 6^th grade at the John-F-Kennedy-Deutsch-Amerikanische-Gemeindschafts-Schule.  "My students taught me conversational German but I also learned much about the German educational system.  I came home with a profound appreciation for the American educational system," said Schermer. 

 

Based in Berlin they traveled to Greece to walk in the footsteps of the ancient philosophers, tour art museums and visit historical cities and archaeology sites.  A highlight was meeting distant relatives in Holland and Sweden.  While in Berlin, their first son was born who is proud of his UN birth certificate.

 

"We wanted to raise our child near his grandparents, all of whom were in Iowa at that time," said Schermer.  "I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to teach 6^th grade at Northwood School, in Ames."  Also fortunate, he added, that two more sons were born in Ames. 

 

While teaching in Ames, Schermer worked on a degree in educational administration at ISU.  "As a teacher I had an opportunity to meet Lu Kiser," added Schermer, "but I did not appreciate all that he did at that time."

 

With a license to serve as a principal, Schermer began his administrative career as middle school principal and K-12 curriculum coordinator in Mediapolis.  "I had no idea about how to do curriculum work," said Schermer.  But he found a flyer about the Iowa ASCD conference on instruction and curriculum in his mail in the fall of 1976 and decided to attend.  "It only cost an additional $5.00 to join Iowa ASCD at the conference, so I did," commented Schermer.  Only later did he learn of Lu Kiser's role in creating that conference.

 

"I met many people there who gave me good suggestions and advice about how to serve as a curriculum coordinator and shared examples of things that had been done in other schools," noted Schermer.  Thus began nearly 30 years of involvement with Iowa ASCD.  "I grew so much professionally and personally because of people I met through Iowa ASCD," reflected Schermer, "although it is not possible to name them all here, I am deeply indebted to these Iowa ASCD members." 

 

"At the IC(2) conference in 1978, Lu Kiser put his arms around me and told some of the Iowa ASCD members standing nearby that they needed to but me to work," said Schermer.  In the spring of 1979 he was elected to the board and has filled many roles including 13 years as membership chair and ending with the title of "historian," which he inherited from the oldest living Iowa ASCD member, Betty Atwood. 

 

Schermer explained that Lu Kiser, who has since passed away, played a major role in establishing Iowa as a leading affiliate with ASCD, serving on the Executive Council for several years.  Lu opened doors and invited Iowa ASCD members to participate at the national level including Tom Budnik and Dick Hanzelka who served as ASCD presidents. 

 

Schermer's involvement at the ASCD level included service on the Board of Directors for several years in addition to serving on the ASCD Global Education Commission.  Schermer claims he has attended 27 ASCD Annual Conferences in his career.  "That is where I gain a sense for what is happening at the national level before it comes to Iowa," he observed.  Most recently he led a session in San Francisco entitled "Bringing the World into Your School" in his capacity as facilitator for the ASCD Global Education Professional Interest Community. 

 

"Involvement with Iowa ASCD and ASCD has been a constant in my career as an educational administrator," said Schermer.  That career includes 16 years as principal of Briggs Elementary School in Maquoketa, Iowa (the job he loved the most) and seven years as superintendent in WACO of Wayland (the job where he worked the hardest).  Retired since 2002, Schermer's "encore careers" ranged from teaching educational leadership classes for Northwest Missouri State University to helping teachers use Skills Iowa's web-based assessment and instructional software as tools for formative assessment and differentiated instruction.  Although he is now in "deep retirement," he is currently helping organize a reunion of Peace Corps volunteers who served in Iran. 

 

Schermer's wife, Shirley, continues her career as Director of the Iowa Burials Program for the Office of the State Archaeologist at the University of Iowa.  "Sometimes I get to tag along as chauffeur, baggage boy, photographer, and confident-le-tur-de-tat," he joked.  Over the years they have traveled to archaeological sites in Europe, Egypt, Peru, Thailand, and China.  A highlight was a 2002 trip to Iran, which Schermer views as one of the friendliest places to visit. 

 

So where in the world is Doug Schermer?  It might depend on which day the question is asked.  An ongoing project involves family history.  Today he is in his basement wrapping up a project in which he has scanned his father's pictures of people and churches dating back to the 1930's.  "Those 70-year-old Kodachrome slides still have excellent color," he noted.  He has also digitized audio tapes of his father's sermons, four of which are transcriptions of radio broadcasts dating back to 1946.  "He was a natural preacher," said Schermer who confessed he paid more attention to them now than when he was younger.  "Typical preacher's kid," he smiled.

 

 

The Moral Imperative Realized by Michael Fullan

  

Richard DuFour shares that, "Like all of Fullan's work, this is a must-read. [Fullan] offers such precise strategies for implementation that inaction is no longer an option for educators who are committed to high levels of learning for all students."

 

Fullan's newest book, The Moral Imperative Realized, is about the actual accomplishment of moral purpose.  For education, it is about "raising the bar and closing the gap of student achievement for all students - not as a slogan, but as a reality."  It is about whole systems engaged in success reform - and both school and system leadership are central to this mission.  Fullan recognizes that "action in the early stages is messy, but leaders with effective moral purpose persist and figure it out."

 

"The question is not just how deep is your moral imperative, but equally what is your strategy," Fullan emphasizes.  Consider reading this book to develop your own understanding and practice of the moral imperative as a strategy:

• Make a personal commitment.  "Leaders need to support, activate, extract, and galvanize the moral commitment that is in the vast majority of teachers.  Most teachers want to make a difference, and they especially like leaders who help them and their colleagues achieve success in terrible circumstances.
• Build relationships.  "In some toxic situations, you need to get rid of some people, but normally you will need to build relationships with diverse people."
• Focus on implementation.  "The moral imperative needs to be channeled into the improvement of practice."
• Develop the collaborative. "When the [collaborative] is mobilized with focus and specificity, it can accomplish amazing results (what we call in motion leadership the speed of quality implementation)."
• Connect to the outside. "The outside is big . . . will include other schools in your district, parents and community, the district itself, and the larger state and national context.  The moral imperative is systemic".
• Be relentless (and divert distracters.) "[Leaders] work both sides of the coin simultaneously - they stay the course on key priorities, and they proactively blunt or divert what might get in the way."

Fullan's real-life "examples of realized moral purpose a) prove that it can be done, b) tell us more precisely and specifically how it can be done, thereby being more usefully accessible to others, and c) generate individual and collective energy the likes of which we have never seen (but only as a result of realization experiences)."

And in the final chapter, Fullan reminds us that "the opposite of doing good is not doing bad but rather good intentions that go unrealized."