Stegar's 5 Claims of Market Globalism
Claim #1. Globalization is about the liberalization and global integration of markets.
In this sentence liberalization means the freedom to export to and import from other nations. Liberalization however only applies to those who have the access to foreign markets and foreign goods. While we all but foreign goods, many of us cannot market our goods internationally as individuals. We are more successful at this if we work for organizations that do trade globally. Ironically, the global integration resulting in cheaper goods in our domestic market has put many of our friends and neighbors out of work.
There are a couple if not more negative possibilities. At the end of Chapter 1, Friedman states, " And that is while the great challenge of our time will be to absorb these changes in ways that do not overwhelm people but also do not leave them behind. " The change to global market integration has benefitted the corporations and individuals who are able to quickly adapt to the moving target of international supply and demand. Those who are not able to adapt are left behind. As has been remarked on multiple times, this is the issue that faces many of the textile and furniture workers in this area. They have been left behind and we need to figure out a way to catch them up. Friedman talks about freeing up resources for greater things. That may be the case in theory, however in practice, it is very difficult for those disenfranchised workers with only high school diplomas. My other fear is that those who at at liberty to exchange goods on the global marketplace do not create monopolies that deprive the rest of us of the benefits of the global marketplace. Friedman quotes David Rothkopf, a former Department of Commerce official about who is going to benefit from and who is going to regulate and who is going to tax the new global organizationas and integrated international workers. Perhaps we are moving to societies organized around international corporations as opposed to countries contained within national borders?
Claim #2. Globalization is inevitable and irreversible. Definitely. There is no doubt that globalization has been going on since people first went in search of food. What is different about this globalization according to Friedman is that it is so quick. According to Friedman the flattening is faster because of technology, "If the prospect of this flattening - and all the pressure, dislocations, and opportunities accompanying it - causes you unease about the future, you are neither alone nor wrong. Whenever civilization has gone through one of these disruptive, dislocating technological revolutions - like Gutenberg's introduction of the printing press - the whole world changed in profound ways. But there is something about the flattening of the world that is going to be qualitatively different from other such profound changes: the speed and breadth with which it is taking hold. The introduction of printing happened over a period of decades and for a long time affected only a relatively small part of the planet. Same with the Industrial Revolution. This flattening prcess is happening at warp speed and directly and indirectly touching a lot more people on the planet at once. The faster and broader this transition to a new era, the more likely is the potential for disruption, as opposed to an orderly transfer of power from the old winners to the new winners."
I'm not sure when there has ever been an orderly transfer of power from the old winners to the new. I think that may be why we have so many wars. Revolts against monarchies and religious powers have never been peaceful. This change will not be peaceful. Maybe that is what terrorism is, the disruption that accompanies this change. When political leaders revolted against religious leaders and colonies against imperialists, they were able to do so on the basis of physical borders that marked territorial power. Now, those borders are impractical to attack with traditional military methods. The twin towers were symbols of the global marketplace and its hard to attack a company with an army. It is much easier to attack the global marketplace through terrorism in the market buildings.
Claim #3. Nobody is in charge of globalization. I would have to agree with this statement. However, there are people that are better at recognizing and harnessing flobal potential than others. Friedman provides a quote from Glenn Reynolds, "Like many facets of the topic you're talking about in your book, there are good and bad aspects of the development. The splintering of media makes for a lot of incoherence or selective cognition (look at our country's polarization), but it also decentralizes power and provides a better guarantee that the complete truth is out there....somewhere... in pieces." It is out there and like the image of the blind men and the elephant, we only see part of it at a time. We can barely predict what our own actions will be, now we have to hedge our bets on what will happen globally. We like to know what is happening and we like predictable futures. That's not the case currently. There are too many changes include the creation of new jobs and the loss of old ones as well as the capacity for instantly disseminated information both good and bad. While we can theoretically control our own response to change, we still don't have a good handle on the change process. The analogy of the puzzle is perfect: There is a grand design and we each have a piece. We just need to figure out how to put them together.
Claim #4: Globalization benefits everyone. Ideally, this will be the case. In the short-term there will be some casualites of lost jobs and opportunities. There is the current existence of tremedous exploitation of weaker individuals and countries. Friedman offers a quote from Glocer, " But it's time to think about the opportunity as well as the pain, just as it's time to think about the obligations of off-shoring as well as the opportunities....Every person, just as every corporation, must tend to his or her own economic destiny, just as our parents and grandparents in the mills, shoe shops and factories did." We have to do this or we will become the exploited or more exploited depending on your personal viewpoint. While we do have cheaper products from places like Walmart that can make huge deals and apply tremendous pressure to domestic and foreign producers to get their goods into Walmart, we have to have jobs that will allow us to buy these products. Ultimately, it is in the interest of powerful corporations to have markets that will bear high enough prices for profit. The question is what is the formula? What employment do people need to pay the prices for the goods we make as cheaply as we can so that we can get the most profit we can? The key ingredients for corporations are profit and market. Without jobs there is no market. Morally, there is another question: What are the responsibilities of the global corporate citizen to the individual worker? If poverty wages are the norm for workers in one country is it moral for the corporation to pay those wages even if it know that it is very difficult to survive on those wages. Or, if the goods made by those workers is sold to middle income Americans who will pay enough for the goods to bring in a good profit, is the corporation's responsibility to its stockholders.
Friedman does make an intriguing claim, that the outsourcing to India has increased demand for American good, "This explains why, although the Untied States has lost some service jobs to India in recent years, total exports from American-based companies - merchandise and services - to India have grownfrom $2.5 billion in 1990 to $5 billion in 2003. So even with the outsourcing of some service jobs from the United States to India, India's growing economy is creating a demand for many more American goods and services. What goes around, comes around."
The implication is that the Indian workers are being paid enough to purchase American products that they would have been unable to purchase otherwise. The question remaining for the displaced worker is where does he or she fit in his or her particular skill set/puzzle piece?
Claim #5 Globalization furthers the spread on democracy. Maybe. Democracy is not necessarily a universal goal. Westerners seem to believe this fallacy that everyone is pining away for democracy. That's not the case. Perhaps we use our faith in this fallacy to justify our military actions in different parts of the world that are not democratic. Rumor that we became involved in Iraq because of oil may have basis in fact. Maybe oil companies did co-opt our post 911 uber-patriotism to engage in a war that would bring in huge profits. Perhaps they hoped we wouldn't notice with the distraction of weapons of mass destruction and the clarion call to spread democracy. Friedman focuses primarily on these corporate connections. The economic conditions made possible by democracy may be its undoing. Friedman writes, " Well, the real information revolution is about to begin. I call this new phase Globalization 3.0 because it followed Globalization 2.0, but I think this new era of globalization will prove to be such a difference of degree that it will be seen, in time, as a difference in kind. That is why I introduced the idea that the world has gone from round to flat. Everywhere you turn, hierarchies are being challenged from below or transforming themselves from top-down structures into more horizontal and collaborative ones." Is one of those hierarchies that will be challenged American Democracy? Is economics going to pull past politics as the dominant force of social organization and allegiance? Currentlly, lobbyists for big corporations have a lot of power in democratic elections. Will the will of big oil and Walmart determine the future of globalization? Would that necessarily be a bad thing?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
The image of the starfish symbolizes Wheatley's writings. The starfish not only thrives in turbulent ocean environments, it also can regenerate itself. Instead of strug
gling with the different types of ocean waters, the starfish has adapted itself to fit in anywhere from the deep to the shallow seas. It has adapted so well that there are over 1,300 known varities. The starfish is in such harmony with the sea that it does not use blood for circulation, but rather filtered ocean water. It lives with the environment. Amazingly, the starfish can also regenerate a leg if one is broken off. Some species can even regenate the entire body from a only a leg, a perfect example of the whole being found in the part. The word that does stand out is harmony. Not a static harmony that is only found when the tides are calm and the weather is clear, but a harmony that is constant and yet mutable. The starfish is the terrestrial based microcosm that reflects the stars in the celestial seas at the edge of our knowledge of the universe: "We are such stuff as stars are made of..."
gling with the different types of ocean waters, the starfish has adapted itself to fit in anywhere from the deep to the shallow seas. It has adapted so well that there are over 1,300 known varities. The starfish is in such harmony with the sea that it does not use blood for circulation, but rather filtered ocean water. It lives with the environment. Amazingly, the starfish can also regenerate a leg if one is broken off. Some species can even regenate the entire body from a only a leg, a perfect example of the whole being found in the part. The word that does stand out is harmony. Not a static harmony that is only found when the tides are calm and the weather is clear, but a harmony that is constant and yet mutable. The starfish is the terrestrial based microcosm that reflects the stars in the celestial seas at the edge of our knowledge of the universe: "We are such stuff as stars are made of..."Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Green Pens and Dunkin Donuts
Green pens are symbols of the structural frame. I use green ink when I'm writing in planners and on report cards. Green symbolized hope to me. It does not connote negativity like red and is more interesting than stately black or blue. When the teachers see me with a green pen in hand, they know I'm going to look at lesson plans.
I bring Dunkin Donuts every Friday. The Munchkins are a symbol of the human resource frame. They signify it's Friday! And hopefully, Mrs. Brown cares about us.
I try to use green ink and bring in Munchkins consistently. There was a lack of stability at my school due to all the principal changes in such a short time. The consistent use of these symbols has helped me to create more stability and more security for staff and for parents. These symbols don't mean anything outside my school, but they are significant for us.
I bring Dunkin Donuts every Friday. The Munchkins are a symbol of the human resource frame. They signify it's Friday! And hopefully, Mrs. Brown cares about us.
I try to use green ink and bring in Munchkins consistently. There was a lack of stability at my school due to all the principal changes in such a short time. The consistent use of these symbols has helped me to create more stability and more security for staff and for parents. These symbols don't mean anything outside my school, but they are significant for us.
Friday, September 11, 2009
In light of our readings and discussions, what are the strengths and limitationsof the structure you inhabit?
I understand my school structure as a local division within a district division within a state division of the organization of public school education in the United States. All of these structure are works in progress with positive and negative characteristics. We have varying degrees of influence on any of these structure and therefore effecting change is relative based on the individual's position in his or hers respective structure. The foundation of the overall federal education structure is its greatest strength: Educating Children. This foundation presupposes the most positive of goals. As I explained in the earlier blog, the actual structure of organization allows us to educate to some degree all children that show up at our doors. The elements to be considered at all division levels are human resources, curriculum, student populations, communication and initiative.
As a federally, state, and district divisionalized structure, schools have standardized, organized, generalized and specialized resources that in the best cases, work together to meet the learning needs of all children. Part of this organization includes specialization by professional operating core. We educate, train and organize teachers so that they can knowledgeably and skillfully instruct students in specialized areas. Additionally, most of our support and technology departments have specialized skills some which require certification. Our state licensure system is indicative of the specialized areas, including but not limited to B-K, elementary, seconday, exceptional children, counseling, music, art, physical education, leadership, media etc.This wide range of professionals helps us to meet the wide range of student needs. We know because of our certification what is expected of us. It is very clear in this system what is required to move up the career ladder there is no ambiguity and this is a positive. However, the system of advancement equates professional supervision and administration with career advancement. This is a negative because not all teachers are desirous of an administrative position. The national board certification has helped to provide public and monetary recognition to excellent teachers who prefer to remain in the classroom.
The state provides teachers with a standard course of study they are supposed to follow. This is a positive because it provides structure and direction for education. However, it can also be a negative because it can limit instruction that might better meet students' interests and needs as well as align better across the curriculum. On the other hand, it does serve to prevent teachers from going off on inappropriate and wild tangents. The flip side of that statement is does the SCOS inhibit or limit creativity?
The structure of public schooling is also secure and predictable for students. Children start school when they are five years old and graduate high school when they are around 18. Every year every child is supposed to make a years programs in the subjects dictated by the SCOS. Teachers are supposed to get every students in their classrooms to the same place using the same materials in the same amount of time. The No Child Left Behind legislation serves as federal oversight to make sure that is what is happening. The EOCs and EOGs in North Carolina serve the same purpose at the state level. What is commendable is that there is accountability placed on every teacher to make sure that all students are learning. The negative that has already been posited numerous times is that all children are not the same, they do not come to us with the same knowledge, they do not learn at the same rates, they have different support structures and they have different and changing academic needs and interests. There is an excellent email that floated around a few years ago with the analogy of keeping all pediatric dentists to the same standard with the same assumptions: All patients would have parents who taught them how to brush and floss before their first dental appointment. All parents would keep all dental appointments. All patients and parents would follow the dentist's instructions. Parents would make sure children did not eat anything bad for teeth. These dentists would then be evaluated every year to see how many patients developed cavaties. Obviously, this is unreasonable, yet we do not see it as unreasonable because we understand that children have different parents, different hygiene practices and different dentite characteristics. Dentists are not blamed for cavaties, but teachers are to blame for a lack of academic achievement.
We have teachers struggling to meet the needs of all students within the classroom, yet we also have students that struggle with the organizational structure of school itself. Some students are not ready at five and some are ready at four. My oldest daughter had mastered elementary math by the end fourth grade and yet she had to sit through fifth grade math instruction. When I tried to get the school to move her to a sixth grade curriculum, they gave her a book, but did not follow up. My youngest daughter was not ready to learn to read in first grade. She is bright, but developmentally, she is very young. The SCOS expects a certain reading level by the end of each grade and she had always struggled to achieve it and is not as fond of reading.
For children who have severe learning issues we have the federal IDEA legislations that guarantees and education to all children regardless of disability. This has been an attempt to help these children who do have significant cognitive defects in terms of learning. Again, this is commendable legislation because it forces educators to teach all students. Unfortunately, there is also a negative affect because of the "labeling" associated with being an Exceptional Child. Many of the children and their parents struggle with this label. Many educators have low expectations for this population. Most children rise to what is expected of them. Administrators sometimes put their least effective teachers with the exceptional program because those teachers are often the newest. The older teachers sometimes use their seniority to get to regular education positions. The guidelines for instructional and testing modifications does benefit many of these students. My oldest son who has been identified as learning disabled in reading and math gets a separate setting, marks in book and extended time. He was able to articulate at his last IEP meeting that he knows he does much better when he does not have to be with all the other kids in the classroom and he doesn't have to make all those bubble marks. While these accomodations are terrific for him and the other students who qualify, what about those that needs these accomodations and do not qualify? Part of the problem with exceptional children is the qualification process. My son qualifies because of discrepancies, but he also qualifies for AIG because of his IQ. Is he really EC? What about those students who do not meet the discrepancy requirements, but still struggle? Why is it illegal to give the same accomodations that those who meet the definition of EC because of discrepancy or other criteria? Are we encouraging parents to look for learning disorders in their children so that their children will get specialized instruction? That question presupposed parents understand enough about EC requirements so that they know how a child qualifies. Most parents who are not in education do not know much at all about EC. I have sat at many meetings in which parents blindly signed this and that without really understanding what was happening. I know that we give them a booklet of their rights. However, unless you are familiar with the vocabulary, it is difficult to truly understand the system.
The booklet is a form of communication that is based on the federal IDEA regulations. Most of the communication from the federal level comes to us in the forms of legislation that is based in congress and that the states and counties are to implement at the local level. Communication is very much top down from the federal government. While we do send represenatives to congress in the hopes that they will pass laws that we like, we are at the mercy of the legislative and executive branches who may or may not have the same interests as we do. Therefore, we are mostly receivers of information. We are not communicators at least at the federal level.
As we have very little voice in communication at the federal level, we have very little voice in the federal educational change process. We can email and call our local representatives, but there is not of direct influence that our superintendents, school boards, even the state board and state superintendent have on the federal education legislation. Again, our elected representatives are supposed to be our voices in the federal political arena. As many if not most have not been in education, this is an interesting arrangement. Federal flexibility is a oxymoron in terms of change. It is very hard to turn that ship. However, there does seem to be more movement recently on the NCLB legislation and making it more equitable and flexible.
My own school structure is very predictable as well. Some of the structure is imposed on us from the upper level divisions of education including the federal government, the state and the county and some of it was developed by this particular school community.
In terms of human resources, I have to follow a prescribed procedure for hiring and evaluating. I could interview candidates on my own, but I don't. For my school, it is important to have two or three other people to help with interviews. Teachers bring particular insights that I may not necessarily have. I structure the interview times, pick most of the candidates for interviews and I develop the questions. However, the other interviewers are invited to ask any of their own questions and suggest any candidates they think might be a good match. One of my teachers writes nothing down and asks all his own questions. He does well with interviews even though he does not follow the entire structure that I provide. Of course, the candidates have to be qualified based on state requirements for different instructional positions. This does limit the candidate pool, but does ensure that the candidates have been educated for the positions for which they are interviewing. (I think it is interesting that while I am high school certified for English, I am an elementary principal and evaluate elementary teachers on elementary standards and I do not have elementary classroom certification).
Evaluation is also part of the human resource structure. We are using the new evaluation instrument and it is massive. It sets a structure for instructional performance and even provides myriad examples of how to meet instructional expectations. While it does cover a lot of performance issues, it has a weakness in terms of classroom management. Additionally, it is very difficult to show that a teacher is not meeting expectations with this instrument. The previous instrument was relatively black and white especially for teachers who were below standard in any area. Additionally, there was physical space available for comments. I always commented and tried to tie in what I observed with their performance rating and also to really compliment the teacher or suggest another approach. The current instrument is more of a checkbox system that does not allow for as much narrative imput. While that structure may be more efficient, I do not feel that it provides the teacher with enough information about what I am seeing in the classroom. At the end of last year, I had two teachers who were really struggling and it was so difficult to point out exactly what was not working because of the checkmarks. Both summative conferences did not go well and I think I would have addressed the issues earlier using the other instrument. It was not fair to them for me not to be as direct on the new instrument. While the old observation instrument was time-consuming, it did provide valuable feedback if the adminstrator took the time. The new instrument is much quicker, but not as good with feedback.
I do try to provide the teachers input into the aspects of education that directly impact the. When we did the performance based groups, the fourth grade wanted to keep all the low-performing groups together all day long for math, science and social studies as well as reading. There are several reasons why I didn't think that would be the best arrangement. However, I let them try it. After two weeks the arrangement was changed so that the students were in performance based groups only for reading. So while there was a structure, the teachers had flexibility within that structure. I could have done the grouping for them from the beginning, but I wanted them to have a chance to make some decisions. Being flexible in this structure is worth the changes and the time lost that can come with flexibility.
At my particular school, in addition to federal, state, and local regulations and guidelines, there are the unwritten human resource rules. These are part of the implicit structure. My first week as a new principal, my custodian smoked his cigar while cleaning the floors. I told him once to stop. The second time I showed him the regulations. His response was that the other administrators let him smoke in the building when the kids weren't there. Hmm? As a new principal, I was unaware of the dynamics of those previous relationships. He ended up not smoking, but it was an interesting encounter. I met with all teachers that summer and one of them informed that she was always 15 minutes late because she had to get her daughter to high school in the morning. That practice stopped. What had changed with these two people was the expectation. I wanted to do well and so all rules were implemented by the book. The other principals who had been there, there actually had been 4 in the four years prior to my appointment, may have been more secure in their position so they could be more flexible. I do let teachers come in late and leave early if they have doctor's appointments, parent meetings or emergencies. This makes up for the time I need them to stay late. We have an understanding and as long as it is not abused, we are all okay. When it is abused, I talk to the staff member and usually it is no longer a problem. To help make sure that the staff understand my expectation, I have a staff handbook organized around the state goals that helps all of us to be on the same page in terms of expectations. It also helps me in case they claim ignorance about a particular issue. I make notes every year so that if something is not covered, I can put it in the next handbook. For example, the handbook structure had not yet dealt with the electronic forums like Facebook. There were several situations at schools across the county and I included directives from the county office in my handbook to help improve that structure.
In terms of students, we take everyone who shows up at our door. As I described earlier, we are supposed to teach them a year's worth of knowledge in a year's time as desribed in the SCOS. Again, all students are not equal. We use the flexibility available within our local school structure to try and differentiate for all students so that they all will make at least a year's growth. We do have EC and AIG services. This year we have implemented flexible performance based literacy groups by class in fourth and fifth grades and by classroom in k-3. What this means is that we are grouping children for reading based on their current performance. We piloted this structure last year in third grade and third grade had the best reading scores by far in our school. At the same time we have performance based groups as the basic foundation of the schedule, I also scheduled support staff to be with the lower performing groups for at least 30 minutes per day to ensure that these students had the most individualized instruction possible. In addition, music, PE, guidance and media teachers are also scheduled into classrooms several times a day to help with the lower performing groups. Now, this was an interesting initiative because this changed the structure of instruction for these certified support staff. So, the scheduling flexibility was a good thing. What is not so good, but can hopefully be rectified, is these other staff are not always sure of how to work with students outside their specialty areas because the previous structure did not allow for it. While the expecation for high achievement for all students is commendable, the reality is that all students are different. While we have a structure that can make it difficult to differentiate, we have a flebility within that structure that does help us to meet students' needs.
The structure dictates that students have so many days of school for so many hours a day and that that staff works so many days for so many hours a day. We have calendars and bells to help us know when we are supposed to be at school. All of us are conditioned to respond appropriately to the bells and show up on the right days etc. Additionally, we know the specific schools we are supposed to attend. Students arrive and go to specific classrooms within the school structure. The teachers' plans dictate the day's structure. Their plans are dictated by the SCOS objectives and the textbooks. Students do not have a lot of input into the structure of their schooling the majority of the time they are in school. This is a positive in that they are being schooled to learn. However, again the structure limits what they can learn, when they learn, how they learn and where they learn. Again, students are different and for some of them it may be better to have lessons in different settings. These factors along with the standard curriculum are what allow us to educate so many students. At my particular school, we are no different. We try to be as flexible as possible, but really there is not a lot we can change about the way the school calendar and school day are structured. The one change I did make in the schedule this year was to schedule every grade level a 90 minute literacy block. One of the grade levels wanted to break their 90 minutes into several different sections and that was fine as long as they had at least 90 minutes. They also understood that any help scheduled in was scheduled for the original 90 minutes and that if they did not choose to do their literacy instruction during that time, they may not have any help.
Communication within my school is something that I am always working on. I get communications from the central office. The central office filters communication from the state and federal education organizations. I send the necessary information to teachers and staff. I use email and never paper. This took some staff some time to get used to this form of communication as they were used to paper memos. At the beginning of the year I send out the handbook, calendar of know events, and schedules electronically. Every week I send out a weekly newsletter to all staff with upcoming events, new policies or changes, instructional ideas and a few words of praise for staff who have gone above and beyond. Staff are responsible for reading this email. This structure works well to convey important information to every staff member. The predictability of the weekly newsletter provides a secure structure for communication. Several have said it is too long some times. One of the reasons the newsletter has so much imformation is so that faculty meetings can be more focused on teacher learning. The structure for staff meetings is that every Wednesday one group or another is meeting. The first meeting of the month is leadership, the second is grade level, the third is faculty and the fourth is vertical team. The leadership meeting is a forum where all members dicuss different things coming up in the school, the faculty meeting is for staff to learn more about instruction or to improve practice. The grade level meetings is the time when grade levels get together to work on plans. Vertical teams are structured as the name suggests with teachers from all grade levels. One of the complaints the teachers at my school had was that they were structured in three different halls and rarely interacted with someone not in their hallway. The vertical teams provide and opportunity for different types of teachers to get together. The goal of the vertical teams the first year was to develop and put together a vertical guide that a new teacher could look at and understand. This guide communicated from grade level to grade level what the teachers were expected to instruct. This helped because teachers were not necessarily aware of expectations of the next grade level. The second year, vertical teams did a book study and then a technological study of internet websites. The meetings are very structured, but I try to have some flexibility in the content. It may be that all these meetings limit some spur of the moment communication, perhaps. I do know that communication has been increased for the staff.
Communication with students is in some ways similar. I send home a monthly newsletter. The teachers send one home weekly. Both newsletters let parents know what is happening. I try to send home postcards for positive reinforcement, but this is a much more rare occurence than it should be. Teachers also try for some positive communications through planners and behavior sheets. Again, this structure of communication is predicatable and secure for students and their parents. I also make those massive calls to all parents with important upcoming events. This is something that works well, but I struggle against that structure because it is just something else to do that does seem to take too much time. However, all these forms of student and parent communication are necessary to reinforce the overall school structure. We also communicate via the formalized report card structure. Teachers try to personalize this structure by writing short notes. I write a comment on each child's report card as well to try and forge stronger relationships with students and parents. There are also informal means of communication that are part of overall climate of the school. These communications take the form of short greetings in the transportation lines, in the halls and throughout the day. Some of these informal, unstructured communications can greatly impact the overall perception of the school. The weakness of the formalized communications structure is that it does not always allow for an exchange of different opinions or criticisms. Those opinions and criticisms can they play out informally and will have to be addressed through the formally.
Finally, there is the relative flexibility of change in the single school as opposed national, state or even district wide change. Things that I no not think the staff, students or pparents will care about much one way or the other, I change. When I think that different stakeholders will want a voice and need a voice in a decision, I take the question before the school leadership team or the grade level. Most of the time if I have a strong opinion about the possible decision, I try to give the stakeholders options that I can live as well as explain my reasoning. I am starting my third year at the school and this approach has worked so well. Teachers like a voice in the decisions and I need their input. They do not want to be bothered with decisions that are not that critical like where they will sit at lunch. They do want a voice in the textbooks they will be using. The leadership team allows for relatively quick change at the individual school level through formalized structure. The negative is that it may take some time before we have a meeting. We may have to have called meetings and these meetings can take a lot of time. Mandated change is somewhat easier because there are no options. Changes will be implemented and personal opinions will not influence these changes. The one exception to this seems to have been the school budget. Lots of educators made lots of phone calls and sent lots of emails and the final state budget was much more generous to educators than the ones originally proposed.
Formalized structure is necessary for order at the national, state, district and local levels. Again, this divisionalized structure is the most effective and efficient way to educate the most children in the standardized amount of time. While I have attempted to cover a lot of ground in terms of the positives and negatives of structure in the divisions of my organization, I understand that the attempt is limited and that there are many other factors yet to be considered. The more I wrote, the more I felt I needed to write as I am just beginning to understand the complex dynamics of education.
I understand my school structure as a local division within a district division within a state division of the organization of public school education in the United States. All of these structure are works in progress with positive and negative characteristics. We have varying degrees of influence on any of these structure and therefore effecting change is relative based on the individual's position in his or hers respective structure. The foundation of the overall federal education structure is its greatest strength: Educating Children. This foundation presupposes the most positive of goals. As I explained in the earlier blog, the actual structure of organization allows us to educate to some degree all children that show up at our doors. The elements to be considered at all division levels are human resources, curriculum, student populations, communication and initiative.
As a federally, state, and district divisionalized structure, schools have standardized, organized, generalized and specialized resources that in the best cases, work together to meet the learning needs of all children. Part of this organization includes specialization by professional operating core. We educate, train and organize teachers so that they can knowledgeably and skillfully instruct students in specialized areas. Additionally, most of our support and technology departments have specialized skills some which require certification. Our state licensure system is indicative of the specialized areas, including but not limited to B-K, elementary, seconday, exceptional children, counseling, music, art, physical education, leadership, media etc.This wide range of professionals helps us to meet the wide range of student needs. We know because of our certification what is expected of us. It is very clear in this system what is required to move up the career ladder there is no ambiguity and this is a positive. However, the system of advancement equates professional supervision and administration with career advancement. This is a negative because not all teachers are desirous of an administrative position. The national board certification has helped to provide public and monetary recognition to excellent teachers who prefer to remain in the classroom.
The state provides teachers with a standard course of study they are supposed to follow. This is a positive because it provides structure and direction for education. However, it can also be a negative because it can limit instruction that might better meet students' interests and needs as well as align better across the curriculum. On the other hand, it does serve to prevent teachers from going off on inappropriate and wild tangents. The flip side of that statement is does the SCOS inhibit or limit creativity?
The structure of public schooling is also secure and predictable for students. Children start school when they are five years old and graduate high school when they are around 18. Every year every child is supposed to make a years programs in the subjects dictated by the SCOS. Teachers are supposed to get every students in their classrooms to the same place using the same materials in the same amount of time. The No Child Left Behind legislation serves as federal oversight to make sure that is what is happening. The EOCs and EOGs in North Carolina serve the same purpose at the state level. What is commendable is that there is accountability placed on every teacher to make sure that all students are learning. The negative that has already been posited numerous times is that all children are not the same, they do not come to us with the same knowledge, they do not learn at the same rates, they have different support structures and they have different and changing academic needs and interests. There is an excellent email that floated around a few years ago with the analogy of keeping all pediatric dentists to the same standard with the same assumptions: All patients would have parents who taught them how to brush and floss before their first dental appointment. All parents would keep all dental appointments. All patients and parents would follow the dentist's instructions. Parents would make sure children did not eat anything bad for teeth. These dentists would then be evaluated every year to see how many patients developed cavaties. Obviously, this is unreasonable, yet we do not see it as unreasonable because we understand that children have different parents, different hygiene practices and different dentite characteristics. Dentists are not blamed for cavaties, but teachers are to blame for a lack of academic achievement.
We have teachers struggling to meet the needs of all students within the classroom, yet we also have students that struggle with the organizational structure of school itself. Some students are not ready at five and some are ready at four. My oldest daughter had mastered elementary math by the end fourth grade and yet she had to sit through fifth grade math instruction. When I tried to get the school to move her to a sixth grade curriculum, they gave her a book, but did not follow up. My youngest daughter was not ready to learn to read in first grade. She is bright, but developmentally, she is very young. The SCOS expects a certain reading level by the end of each grade and she had always struggled to achieve it and is not as fond of reading.
For children who have severe learning issues we have the federal IDEA legislations that guarantees and education to all children regardless of disability. This has been an attempt to help these children who do have significant cognitive defects in terms of learning. Again, this is commendable legislation because it forces educators to teach all students. Unfortunately, there is also a negative affect because of the "labeling" associated with being an Exceptional Child. Many of the children and their parents struggle with this label. Many educators have low expectations for this population. Most children rise to what is expected of them. Administrators sometimes put their least effective teachers with the exceptional program because those teachers are often the newest. The older teachers sometimes use their seniority to get to regular education positions. The guidelines for instructional and testing modifications does benefit many of these students. My oldest son who has been identified as learning disabled in reading and math gets a separate setting, marks in book and extended time. He was able to articulate at his last IEP meeting that he knows he does much better when he does not have to be with all the other kids in the classroom and he doesn't have to make all those bubble marks. While these accomodations are terrific for him and the other students who qualify, what about those that needs these accomodations and do not qualify? Part of the problem with exceptional children is the qualification process. My son qualifies because of discrepancies, but he also qualifies for AIG because of his IQ. Is he really EC? What about those students who do not meet the discrepancy requirements, but still struggle? Why is it illegal to give the same accomodations that those who meet the definition of EC because of discrepancy or other criteria? Are we encouraging parents to look for learning disorders in their children so that their children will get specialized instruction? That question presupposed parents understand enough about EC requirements so that they know how a child qualifies. Most parents who are not in education do not know much at all about EC. I have sat at many meetings in which parents blindly signed this and that without really understanding what was happening. I know that we give them a booklet of their rights. However, unless you are familiar with the vocabulary, it is difficult to truly understand the system.
The booklet is a form of communication that is based on the federal IDEA regulations. Most of the communication from the federal level comes to us in the forms of legislation that is based in congress and that the states and counties are to implement at the local level. Communication is very much top down from the federal government. While we do send represenatives to congress in the hopes that they will pass laws that we like, we are at the mercy of the legislative and executive branches who may or may not have the same interests as we do. Therefore, we are mostly receivers of information. We are not communicators at least at the federal level.
As we have very little voice in communication at the federal level, we have very little voice in the federal educational change process. We can email and call our local representatives, but there is not of direct influence that our superintendents, school boards, even the state board and state superintendent have on the federal education legislation. Again, our elected representatives are supposed to be our voices in the federal political arena. As many if not most have not been in education, this is an interesting arrangement. Federal flexibility is a oxymoron in terms of change. It is very hard to turn that ship. However, there does seem to be more movement recently on the NCLB legislation and making it more equitable and flexible.
My own school structure is very predictable as well. Some of the structure is imposed on us from the upper level divisions of education including the federal government, the state and the county and some of it was developed by this particular school community.
In terms of human resources, I have to follow a prescribed procedure for hiring and evaluating. I could interview candidates on my own, but I don't. For my school, it is important to have two or three other people to help with interviews. Teachers bring particular insights that I may not necessarily have. I structure the interview times, pick most of the candidates for interviews and I develop the questions. However, the other interviewers are invited to ask any of their own questions and suggest any candidates they think might be a good match. One of my teachers writes nothing down and asks all his own questions. He does well with interviews even though he does not follow the entire structure that I provide. Of course, the candidates have to be qualified based on state requirements for different instructional positions. This does limit the candidate pool, but does ensure that the candidates have been educated for the positions for which they are interviewing. (I think it is interesting that while I am high school certified for English, I am an elementary principal and evaluate elementary teachers on elementary standards and I do not have elementary classroom certification).
Evaluation is also part of the human resource structure. We are using the new evaluation instrument and it is massive. It sets a structure for instructional performance and even provides myriad examples of how to meet instructional expectations. While it does cover a lot of performance issues, it has a weakness in terms of classroom management. Additionally, it is very difficult to show that a teacher is not meeting expectations with this instrument. The previous instrument was relatively black and white especially for teachers who were below standard in any area. Additionally, there was physical space available for comments. I always commented and tried to tie in what I observed with their performance rating and also to really compliment the teacher or suggest another approach. The current instrument is more of a checkbox system that does not allow for as much narrative imput. While that structure may be more efficient, I do not feel that it provides the teacher with enough information about what I am seeing in the classroom. At the end of last year, I had two teachers who were really struggling and it was so difficult to point out exactly what was not working because of the checkmarks. Both summative conferences did not go well and I think I would have addressed the issues earlier using the other instrument. It was not fair to them for me not to be as direct on the new instrument. While the old observation instrument was time-consuming, it did provide valuable feedback if the adminstrator took the time. The new instrument is much quicker, but not as good with feedback.
I do try to provide the teachers input into the aspects of education that directly impact the. When we did the performance based groups, the fourth grade wanted to keep all the low-performing groups together all day long for math, science and social studies as well as reading. There are several reasons why I didn't think that would be the best arrangement. However, I let them try it. After two weeks the arrangement was changed so that the students were in performance based groups only for reading. So while there was a structure, the teachers had flexibility within that structure. I could have done the grouping for them from the beginning, but I wanted them to have a chance to make some decisions. Being flexible in this structure is worth the changes and the time lost that can come with flexibility.
At my particular school, in addition to federal, state, and local regulations and guidelines, there are the unwritten human resource rules. These are part of the implicit structure. My first week as a new principal, my custodian smoked his cigar while cleaning the floors. I told him once to stop. The second time I showed him the regulations. His response was that the other administrators let him smoke in the building when the kids weren't there. Hmm? As a new principal, I was unaware of the dynamics of those previous relationships. He ended up not smoking, but it was an interesting encounter. I met with all teachers that summer and one of them informed that she was always 15 minutes late because she had to get her daughter to high school in the morning. That practice stopped. What had changed with these two people was the expectation. I wanted to do well and so all rules were implemented by the book. The other principals who had been there, there actually had been 4 in the four years prior to my appointment, may have been more secure in their position so they could be more flexible. I do let teachers come in late and leave early if they have doctor's appointments, parent meetings or emergencies. This makes up for the time I need them to stay late. We have an understanding and as long as it is not abused, we are all okay. When it is abused, I talk to the staff member and usually it is no longer a problem. To help make sure that the staff understand my expectation, I have a staff handbook organized around the state goals that helps all of us to be on the same page in terms of expectations. It also helps me in case they claim ignorance about a particular issue. I make notes every year so that if something is not covered, I can put it in the next handbook. For example, the handbook structure had not yet dealt with the electronic forums like Facebook. There were several situations at schools across the county and I included directives from the county office in my handbook to help improve that structure.
In terms of students, we take everyone who shows up at our door. As I described earlier, we are supposed to teach them a year's worth of knowledge in a year's time as desribed in the SCOS. Again, all students are not equal. We use the flexibility available within our local school structure to try and differentiate for all students so that they all will make at least a year's growth. We do have EC and AIG services. This year we have implemented flexible performance based literacy groups by class in fourth and fifth grades and by classroom in k-3. What this means is that we are grouping children for reading based on their current performance. We piloted this structure last year in third grade and third grade had the best reading scores by far in our school. At the same time we have performance based groups as the basic foundation of the schedule, I also scheduled support staff to be with the lower performing groups for at least 30 minutes per day to ensure that these students had the most individualized instruction possible. In addition, music, PE, guidance and media teachers are also scheduled into classrooms several times a day to help with the lower performing groups. Now, this was an interesting initiative because this changed the structure of instruction for these certified support staff. So, the scheduling flexibility was a good thing. What is not so good, but can hopefully be rectified, is these other staff are not always sure of how to work with students outside their specialty areas because the previous structure did not allow for it. While the expecation for high achievement for all students is commendable, the reality is that all students are different. While we have a structure that can make it difficult to differentiate, we have a flebility within that structure that does help us to meet students' needs.
The structure dictates that students have so many days of school for so many hours a day and that that staff works so many days for so many hours a day. We have calendars and bells to help us know when we are supposed to be at school. All of us are conditioned to respond appropriately to the bells and show up on the right days etc. Additionally, we know the specific schools we are supposed to attend. Students arrive and go to specific classrooms within the school structure. The teachers' plans dictate the day's structure. Their plans are dictated by the SCOS objectives and the textbooks. Students do not have a lot of input into the structure of their schooling the majority of the time they are in school. This is a positive in that they are being schooled to learn. However, again the structure limits what they can learn, when they learn, how they learn and where they learn. Again, students are different and for some of them it may be better to have lessons in different settings. These factors along with the standard curriculum are what allow us to educate so many students. At my particular school, we are no different. We try to be as flexible as possible, but really there is not a lot we can change about the way the school calendar and school day are structured. The one change I did make in the schedule this year was to schedule every grade level a 90 minute literacy block. One of the grade levels wanted to break their 90 minutes into several different sections and that was fine as long as they had at least 90 minutes. They also understood that any help scheduled in was scheduled for the original 90 minutes and that if they did not choose to do their literacy instruction during that time, they may not have any help.
Communication within my school is something that I am always working on. I get communications from the central office. The central office filters communication from the state and federal education organizations. I send the necessary information to teachers and staff. I use email and never paper. This took some staff some time to get used to this form of communication as they were used to paper memos. At the beginning of the year I send out the handbook, calendar of know events, and schedules electronically. Every week I send out a weekly newsletter to all staff with upcoming events, new policies or changes, instructional ideas and a few words of praise for staff who have gone above and beyond. Staff are responsible for reading this email. This structure works well to convey important information to every staff member. The predictability of the weekly newsletter provides a secure structure for communication. Several have said it is too long some times. One of the reasons the newsletter has so much imformation is so that faculty meetings can be more focused on teacher learning. The structure for staff meetings is that every Wednesday one group or another is meeting. The first meeting of the month is leadership, the second is grade level, the third is faculty and the fourth is vertical team. The leadership meeting is a forum where all members dicuss different things coming up in the school, the faculty meeting is for staff to learn more about instruction or to improve practice. The grade level meetings is the time when grade levels get together to work on plans. Vertical teams are structured as the name suggests with teachers from all grade levels. One of the complaints the teachers at my school had was that they were structured in three different halls and rarely interacted with someone not in their hallway. The vertical teams provide and opportunity for different types of teachers to get together. The goal of the vertical teams the first year was to develop and put together a vertical guide that a new teacher could look at and understand. This guide communicated from grade level to grade level what the teachers were expected to instruct. This helped because teachers were not necessarily aware of expectations of the next grade level. The second year, vertical teams did a book study and then a technological study of internet websites. The meetings are very structured, but I try to have some flexibility in the content. It may be that all these meetings limit some spur of the moment communication, perhaps. I do know that communication has been increased for the staff.
Communication with students is in some ways similar. I send home a monthly newsletter. The teachers send one home weekly. Both newsletters let parents know what is happening. I try to send home postcards for positive reinforcement, but this is a much more rare occurence than it should be. Teachers also try for some positive communications through planners and behavior sheets. Again, this structure of communication is predicatable and secure for students and their parents. I also make those massive calls to all parents with important upcoming events. This is something that works well, but I struggle against that structure because it is just something else to do that does seem to take too much time. However, all these forms of student and parent communication are necessary to reinforce the overall school structure. We also communicate via the formalized report card structure. Teachers try to personalize this structure by writing short notes. I write a comment on each child's report card as well to try and forge stronger relationships with students and parents. There are also informal means of communication that are part of overall climate of the school. These communications take the form of short greetings in the transportation lines, in the halls and throughout the day. Some of these informal, unstructured communications can greatly impact the overall perception of the school. The weakness of the formalized communications structure is that it does not always allow for an exchange of different opinions or criticisms. Those opinions and criticisms can they play out informally and will have to be addressed through the formally.
Finally, there is the relative flexibility of change in the single school as opposed national, state or even district wide change. Things that I no not think the staff, students or pparents will care about much one way or the other, I change. When I think that different stakeholders will want a voice and need a voice in a decision, I take the question before the school leadership team or the grade level. Most of the time if I have a strong opinion about the possible decision, I try to give the stakeholders options that I can live as well as explain my reasoning. I am starting my third year at the school and this approach has worked so well. Teachers like a voice in the decisions and I need their input. They do not want to be bothered with decisions that are not that critical like where they will sit at lunch. They do want a voice in the textbooks they will be using. The leadership team allows for relatively quick change at the individual school level through formalized structure. The negative is that it may take some time before we have a meeting. We may have to have called meetings and these meetings can take a lot of time. Mandated change is somewhat easier because there are no options. Changes will be implemented and personal opinions will not influence these changes. The one exception to this seems to have been the school budget. Lots of educators made lots of phone calls and sent lots of emails and the final state budget was much more generous to educators than the ones originally proposed.
Formalized structure is necessary for order at the national, state, district and local levels. Again, this divisionalized structure is the most effective and efficient way to educate the most children in the standardized amount of time. While I have attempted to cover a lot of ground in terms of the positives and negatives of structure in the divisions of my organization, I understand that the attempt is limited and that there are many other factors yet to be considered. The more I wrote, the more I felt I needed to write as I am just beginning to understand the complex dynamics of education.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Metaphors
I could not find an official metaphor. However, our unofficial metaphor is that we are a family. I do talk about our school as having a family atmosphere. Teachers and staff also seem to see it as a familial structure. Some days I think this is a very appropriate metaphor. At times I feel like a parent, especially when I have to correct someone about something they should already know. At other times when I am corrected by people at central office, I feel like the child. Last year one of the best and longest serving teachers at school developed terminal cancer. She was in her early 40s with two children in 5th and 8th grades. It was a long drawn out struggle that lasted about 9 months. Most of the time this teacher was completely incapacitated and could do nothing for herself or her family. Our school family pitched in everyone made meals, shuttled kids, cleaned house etc. Right before Christmas we went over to her house and decorated it for the holidays and had food and drinks. She was in pain but able to enjoy seeing everyone. This was the last time we were all together before things became too bad. I don't know if it takes a crisis like that to really have people function like a family. After Christmas a bunch of us went over and put everything up. We all sat together at the funeral. During this experience we really did function like a family. If the teacher had not been such a positive presence I wonder if the same things would have transpired? As the school leader, I sometimes feel excluded because in the metaphor of family, I still have to evaluate and sometimes those evaluations are not glowing. It is hard for some teachers to take constructive criticism and still see the school personnel, especially leadership, as a family. I also think it is hard when leadership has a family approach to necessarily critique what needs to be critiqued because when we have positive relationships with people we try to avoid hurting their feelings. That was one of the good things about having an assistant principal. She would point out to me when she thought I was letting the familial nature of the relationship get in the way of what needed to be said. Without an assistant principal this year, it will be much more difficult for me to have that additional perspective. Staff members can get fussy with one another just like siblings. I look at lesson plans weekly like I do my children's homework. Positive reinforcement is used with staff as must of us with children have tried it with their childre. I try to recognize and heap praise on those who go the extra mile hopefully to spur all of them on.It is a fine line before between being professionally constructive and being too familial. A better metaphor would be we are all pieces of the same puzzle. We are all different shapes and we all have different strengths and responsibilities. However, this metaphor is not as warm and fuzzy. As a female elementary school leader, I think we like the warm and fuzzy. The puzzle metaphor may be better for a business or higher organizations of education. What the most important thing is regardless is building relationships with people built on trust and mutual respect.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
What type of frame is most commonly used by leaders in my educational system? Why?
We use the structural frame. Schools are structured to ease administration both physically and philosophically. Schools themselves are structures. We then fill these structures with structured groups by age, ability, and interest when possible. We talk about structuring the school day and the structuring of the curricula. We also talk about scaffolding which every structure needs. Education is housed in structures and then we structure what is taught. Employees are structured in their respective roles. Human resources are structured as a pyramid with the superintendent at the top, moving on to associate superintendents, directors, principals, classroom teachers and other certified staff and rounding out with support staff. Actually, this pyramid retracts a bit at the base with the non-certified staff. It can be a little hairy trying to figure out where the school board fits in and how symbiotic the relationship is between the superintendent and the school board. We employ the structure frame because it works well for so many students. It is a huge challenge to educate the individual, so we educate masses of individuals and the structure frame is the only frame with that capacity. Within the public school structure frame, we have the smaller human resource, political and symbolic frames. In our earlier leadership courses, we learned all about the importance of relationship building, understanding who has the power and the importance of school culture. These structures do exist in public education, but only under the umbrella of the structure frame. To continue the medical analogy that Bolman and Deal occasionally reference, structure is the bones that hold the rest of the frames within the educational body. If we soley focused on the human resource frame, we would not be putting children first as would be the case with the political frame. An argument could be made for having the symbolic frame be the dominant one for education because it could handle the children first philosophy. However, it does not have the capacity that the structure frame has for getting people the materials, information, organization and instruction we purport to be necessary for a good public school education.
We use the structural frame. Schools are structured to ease administration both physically and philosophically. Schools themselves are structures. We then fill these structures with structured groups by age, ability, and interest when possible. We talk about structuring the school day and the structuring of the curricula. We also talk about scaffolding which every structure needs. Education is housed in structures and then we structure what is taught. Employees are structured in their respective roles. Human resources are structured as a pyramid with the superintendent at the top, moving on to associate superintendents, directors, principals, classroom teachers and other certified staff and rounding out with support staff. Actually, this pyramid retracts a bit at the base with the non-certified staff. It can be a little hairy trying to figure out where the school board fits in and how symbiotic the relationship is between the superintendent and the school board. We employ the structure frame because it works well for so many students. It is a huge challenge to educate the individual, so we educate masses of individuals and the structure frame is the only frame with that capacity. Within the public school structure frame, we have the smaller human resource, political and symbolic frames. In our earlier leadership courses, we learned all about the importance of relationship building, understanding who has the power and the importance of school culture. These structures do exist in public education, but only under the umbrella of the structure frame. To continue the medical analogy that Bolman and Deal occasionally reference, structure is the bones that hold the rest of the frames within the educational body. If we soley focused on the human resource frame, we would not be putting children first as would be the case with the political frame. An argument could be made for having the symbolic frame be the dominant one for education because it could handle the children first philosophy. However, it does not have the capacity that the structure frame has for getting people the materials, information, organization and instruction we purport to be necessary for a good public school education.
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