Significance, Influence, & Leadership
It has been said that leadership is influence. This is so true, and I was reminded of this today. I had the honor of being part of a book launch and signing at one of our local Barnes and Noble stores today for author, . He wrote the book The Second Decade: Raising Kids to be Happy, Self-Sufficient Adults through Work (2016). I learned of the book through Indiana Speaker of the House, Brian Bosma. He sent me a copy of the book and asked that I read it and think about how this book could be used to influence others in helping to develop and educate our children. I was excited to get the book and, of course, immediately read it. Come on, the Speaker of the House sends you a book and asks you to read it, well, you read it! And…of course, I started tweeting about it. Next thing you know I’m tweeting back and forth with Speaker Bosma and, lo and behold I’m suddenly tweeting with Dr. Helveston. Then, I’m being invited to attend a book signing via twitter. I continue to be amazed by the power of twitter. Well, of course I am going to the book signing – one of my most valued collections is of my author signed books. So, now that I have set the stage let’s get to some content in this post.
It was such an honor to have Speaker Bosma introduce me to Dr. Helveston before the event started. Little did I know I was being introduced by a man, Speaker Bosma, who has had a great deal of influence on me (to read about that, click here) to another man, Dr. Helveston, who would influence me immensely in just the few minutes of visiting and listening to him speak at the event. One of the most powerful things he said to me was, “This research and book is a project I have started really late in my life and career.” With this statement he had me hooked as someone who absolutely knows how to be significant in life. As a believer that there is no such thing as retirement – only significance in the second half, I was certain I had met an icon of being significant, not just successful. This has been a topic of interest of mine for some time now. In fact I have blogged about it in “Significance: Impacting Outside Yourself.”
As we talked, it was evident that Dr. Helveston wants to continue to have an influence on the world and particularly on our youth. He wants to find influential ways to have the ideas and framework brought forth in his book to really make a difference. Make no mistake, Dr. Helveston is a successful doctor, but I was truly in the presence of an influential and significant person and leader. There were individuals in attendance who were mentioned in the book and I could quickly see the influence this great man had on their lives. This very humble man clearly has had an influence on everyone he has come in contact with and is significant. Leaders, like Dr. Helveston, that strive to be significant seek to create the greatest impact and influence. These are the types of leaders that we value the most; inspired by their courage and resiliency, we seek to emulate them. Here I was in the presence of two such leaders – Dr. Helveston and Speaker Bosma. These are the leaders that can get the most out of very little, are grateful for the opportunity to lead, and always treat others like family. It was very evident from all the stories that every patient of Dr. Helveston became family. Speaker Bosma told the story of how they had met when he became the doctor of his son. Now, years later, there is still a very close relationship between Dr. Helveston and the Bosma family. 
Great leaders are the most memorable, influential, and significant. They go about their day leveraging their distinction by leading in ways that come most naturally to them. This is so true, because I might not even had read the book had there not been a leader in my life that turned me on to reading. Had there not been a Mrs. Wilking in my life I might not have become the leader I have because I would not have had the learning from reading I have been afforded. You can learn of the birth of my love of reading by checking out “Reading Big Red.” Click here to read the post. Significant leaders are those who enjoy sharing their wisdom and secrets of success. Dr. Helveston has certainly done this in his book. Leadership is a process of influencing others. Dr. Helveston is without a doubt influencing others with the framework for developing our children suggested in this book.
The Second Decade: Raising Kids to be Happy, Self-Sufficient Adults through Work (2016) is an incredible book that really makes you think and want to take action. I wrote the following in both my Goodreads and Amazon five start review of the book:
“Everyone who is a parent, teacher, or in a position to influence children either directly or by policy should read this book! In this book, Dr. Helveston recognizes the need for what I will call internships – meaningful work. The five actions developed in this book of:
1. Plan ahead for a quality education pursued with an eye on the future;
2. Learn life lessons and useful skills from the work you perform and the people you meet;
3. Seek advice and inspiration from mentors throughout your life;
4. Recognized that nothing is accomplished without time and effort; and
5. Pursue honest and productive work
are well developed, researched, and referenced so the reading can use the book as a guide. This book can serve as a framework for anyone who believes as I do, that helping parents teach their children to gain academic skills through a quality education and acquire practical skills learned by working is an invaluable component to a lifetime of success. Again, this is the must read book of all who want success for all children.”
Dr. Helveston posited in the book that there is an important activity that seems to be getting lost amid meaningless structure—holding down a job outside the home, for money. He argued that more than any other activity, work adds meaning to the knowledge learned in books and gives depth to the values instilled at home. I really agree with this and the research would concur. In fact, this is why I believe internships are so important in young people’s lives. This workplace development orientation requires inculcating good character traits within the young person, which will help them to carry out their professional responsibilities throughout the rest of their lives.
The idea of the “inclusive middle class” is one that really jumped out at me in the book. This really drove home why it is important for us to make sure we are carrying out and teaching our children the five actions listed above. Dr. Helveston said:
“But the future offers a two-way street. A position attained is never guaranteed. A person can attain more or accomplish less. Success can be in the form of financial security or with the attainment of other worthwhile goals. In either case, it takes effort to keep and possibly improve one’s place in society.” ~ Dr. Eugene Helveston (2016, p. 25)
Those who understand this will certainly have a leg up in society. We have an obligation to the children of the world to be providing them with the experiences to learn these facts. One way to formalize this would be to ramp up our internship programs both at the post-secondary level and in our high school programs. What better way to give our students the real life experiences necessary to help them be successful, happy, and functional citizens. Dr. Helveston’s book provides a guide and framework for educators, parents, and policymakers to help our children understand what opportunities are available to them and facilitate the journey to become their best selves.
Career Readiness for All?
I had the privilege of meeting and hearing from Dr. Nancy Hoffman of Jobs for the Future yesterday at our fourth Panel to Study Alternatives to the ISTEP+ Program Test. Our objective of having Dr. Hoffman was to discuss how we assess career readiness under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). I really saw a great deal of the value in the information she was presenting to us and wanted to share. Here are some facts she started with:
- The unemployment rate among Hoosiers age 16 to 19 year old is about 15%.
- Missing out on jobs during the late tees can have negative effects throughout a person’s working life.
- A young person who doesn’t get work experience between 16 and 19 is missing a major developmental experience.
- The economy suffers because of the above bullet points.
I was also struck by the idea of disconnected youth: those who are not in school or working – “have lower wages and marriage rates, higher incarceration and unemployment rates, worse health, less job satisfaction, and eve less happiness as adults than people who did not experience youth disconnection. Just as early successes breed optimism, early setbacks plant the seeds of hopelessness.”
“It’s not just about young people: The economy needs prepared young people.” ~ Dr. Nancy Hoffman
- Far too many young people complete a postsecondary degree/credential.
- STEM fields hold promise; employers struggle to find skilled employees.
- High school is not working for far too many young people
- Careers increasingly require postsecondary education and work readiness skills and experience.
- Education workforce, and economic development are inextricably connected.
“In my utopia, all high school students would have a structured work experience – just as 70% of young people do in Switzerland.” ~ Dr. Nancy Hoffman
Indiana is ahead of most states in having a law requiring career readiness activities starting in elementary school. Indiana has a career readiness definition which includes all students. Additionally, Indiana has career exploration courses. We provide Career and Technical Education (CTE) dual enrollment and we have strong CTE results.
Here are some questions that states need to be asking and addressing:
- What is the state’s definition of career readiness?
- Does the state want to focus on all students or exclusively CTE students?
- Are college and career preparation the same or different?
- How should various options be valued and weighed?
The Leadership Tower: A Classic Jenga Model
I recently got a very cool gift from a group of Hoosier Academies Network of School’s teachers. The teachers took Jenga® pieces, signed them, and then glued the tower together. This was such an appropriate and appreciated gift because of how much we use the Jenga® theme, and the fact that they built something to give to me. For those that know me well, know that I am a believer in creating models and building when do professional growth activities. In other words, I strive not to use technology and presentations. I was deeply moved by the gesture and have picked a special place in my office for this.
You all know what Jenga® is, right? That’s the game where you start with 54 wooden pieces stacked in 18 alternating rows creating a stable tower. Every move from that point on destabilizes the tower as pieces are removed from inside the structure to place them on top growing it taller and taller until it eventually topples. Many times when we play we just pull pieces till someone (the loser) makes the tower fall. As I looked at the tower I had been given, I thought about the powerful metaphor Jenga® is as a leadership model. I have blogged about it before in Jenga Masters Leadership. Click here to read the post. This time as I was viewing the tower I thought of a new aspect. I viewed the tower as a model of change and strategy decisions.
As a leader, are you building towards a cohesive vision for the future of your organization? Or, are you just pulling blocks out and placing on top of the tower, hoping the structure does not topple over?
My New Leadership Talent: Spinning Plates!
Coming to grips with the multiple parts to any organization is invaluable for leaders trying to keep their people and priorities in balance at a time when cultural and leadership change sometimes seems an existential imperative. Just as a circus performer deftly spins plates or bowls to keep them moving and upright, so must leaders constantly intervene to encourage the sorts of behavior that align an organization with its top priorities. Masters in this circus manipulation art can barely keep 100 plates spinning at a time. How many plates can any harried player-manager handle? Typically, less than a dozen.
Today, for the first time in my life I did a plate spinning act for our entire school staff. I had been using the metaphor for a few months now because of all of the things we have going on. In fact, I would many times just make a motion like I was spinning a plate. Therefore, I decided in my opening session that I would spin plates. For being my first time it went very well – I think. I even used the act introduce our newest administrators by passing them a poll with a spinning plate as an act of passing the torch, so to speak. The plates really represent all the facets, initiatives, paradoxes, parts of an organization a leader must be focused on. Spend to much time on one plate and the others fall. Left too long without attention, they run out of energy, start spinning out of control, and may come crashing to the floor. Personal development, coaching, performance management, addressing team dynamics, and reinforcing objectives are all forms of plate spinning. The leader must find the exact right balance.
Embracing the paradoxes can be uncomfortable. Yet the act of trying to reconcile these tensions helps leaders keep their eyes on all their spinning plates and identify when interventions are needed to keep the organization lined up with its top priorities. I believe approaching leadership much like plate spinning makes it possible to avoid the frustration of many leaders I’ve witnessed, who pick the extremes by either trying to stifle complex behavior by building powerful and rigid top-down structures, or by looser, more laissez-faire styles of management that expose the messy realities of human endeavor. Far more centered and high performing, in my experience, are those leaders who welcome the inconvenient contradictions of organizational life.
This is why I am such a believer in engagement and empowerment of everyone on the team. With an intent-based leadership philosophy where everyone is a leader, all individuals have a role in keeping the plates spinning. Empowerment is fundamentally an individualized equation, or what I call hyper-personalized. What might make one employee engaged might turn off the next person – we, as leaders, must be able to read these turn-ons and turn-offs. There are many variables that can impact any one person’s engagement, and the mix is individually unique. You can’t just become a better plate spinner. You have to find ways to keep the plates spinning on their own.
Indiana Assessment Vision
Yesterday, we had our third legislative panel meeting studying alternatives to the ISTEP Program Test. This is part of our working toward the assessment plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) for Indiana. One of the things we worked on yesterday was the vision statement of the group. Using suggestions from panel members, the panel legislative staff came up with the following draft statement:
“Indiana looks to design an assessment system that is student-centered and provides meaningful and timely information to educators and parents on both a student’s on-grade proficiency level and growth toward Indiana’s College and Career Ready standards. The assessment needs to be viable, reliable, research-based, and meet the requirements of both state and federal law, while meeting the needs of all students across Indiana.”
Now, being the vision guru I am, I immediately realized it did not meet the 35 words or less rule of thumb. I did, however, quickly underline what I thought were the most important parts of the vision statement that our panel needed to do to meet the needs of our students, families, and schools (I have underlined above). Here are the points:
- student-centered
- meaningful
- timely
- information to educators and parents
- on-grade proficiency level and growth
I suggested we eliminate the last sentence, “The assessment needs to be viable, reliable, research-based, and meet the requirements of both state and federal law, while meeting the needs of all students across Indiana.” because I do not believe it is at all visionary to be valid, reliable, researched based and meeting the letter of the law. We have that obligation to Indiana and the federal government through ESSA. We don’t need a vision for that.
So, my proposed vision statement would be:
“Indiana looks to design an assessment system that is student-centered* and provides meaningful and timely information to educators and parents on both a student’s on-grade proficiency level and growth toward Indiana’s College and Career Ready standards.”
You will notice the * with student-centered. I believe we should have a definition for student-centered following the vision statement. For me, that definition could be:
*A Student-centered assessment system, which includes student performance, academic growth, and multiple measures, sets challenging items and tasks that are intended to encourage deep learning and create a sense of high expectations and mutual accountability.
Then, I believe it is even more important to develop a set of belief statements associated to this process. I took pieces from what individuals submitted as vision statements to make a list of possible belief statements. I really believe that many of what panel members submitted were belief statements, not vision statements. This was a good things because we should have belief statements guiding our work.
Here is the list I came up with:
- New assessment must be implemented with fidelity
- Timely results
- Empowers students, parents, educators, and administrators
- Includes college and career readiness metric
- Meets the needs of all students
- Cost effective
- Accurately assesses students’ learning and growth over time
- Takes less time away from instruction and learning
- Equity for all students in how they take the assessment (technology/modality)
So, put all together, here’s what my draft would look like:
“Indiana looks to design an assessment system that is student-centered* and provides meaningful and timely information to educators and parents on both a student’s on-grade proficiency level and growth toward Indiana’s College and Career Ready standards.”
*A Student-centered assessment system, which includes student performance, academic growth, and multiple measures, sets challenging items and tasks that are intended to encourage deep learning and create a sense of high expectations and mutual accountability.
Indiana’s new assessment system must:
- be implemented with fidelity.
- provide timely results.
- empower students, parents, educators, and administrators.
- include college and career readiness metric.
- meets the needs of all students.
- be cost effective.
- accurately assesses students’ learning and growth over time.
- take less time away from instruction and learning.
- provide equity for all students in how they take the assessment (technology/modality).
Because ESSA requires us to have a summative assessment in grades 3-8 and a high school component our conversation must shift from all the chatter about whether wanting to test or not or whether it is right to test. Really, that is irrelevant. What is important is that we make sure all of our stakeholders understand “why” assessment is happening and exactly how the data will be used. I believe we are on the right track to developing a vision and belief statements that can drive this work. I would love to hear feedback on additional belief statements or edits to make the belief statement suggestions better.
Teacher Evaluation & Leading Learning
Evaluation of teacher performance plays a crucial role in educational personnel reform, student performance, and teacher leader development, so it has been an important yet difficult issue to tackle in educational reform. Before the reform efforts of 5-10 years ago, teacher performance evaluation was very teacher task oriented, neglecting contextual performance and student learning. I would call this managing teachers as opposed to leading learning. Previous evaluations of teachers failed to make strict distinction among the three dominant types of evaluation: capability, achievement, and effectiveness. I also believe these evaluations did not take into account the context of the school. These evaluations were a single action being done to teachers as opposed to a process or system created and carried out to support teachers in his or her role of carrying out the vision and mission of their school.
This post is not about how to create a teacher evaluation system, but about why it is so important that we have a great performance evaluation system to SUPPORT our teachers. I believe this is one of those areas where our teachers deserve to be made “first” so we can put our “students first.” Marzano tells us that great evaluation systems develop expertise with specificity. This is so important in enabling our teachers to carry out their role in providing highly effective student learning and growth as part of the learning profile of the school. Additionally, Danielson argues the full value of a high quality evaluation framework is not realized until it is used as the foundation for professional conversations among practitioners as they seek to enhance their skill in the complex task of teaching.
So, let’s talk about those conversations. We are completely overhauling our evaluation process/system for the Hoosier Academies Network of Schools. Leave it to say, there were many gaps in the process (or lack there of) and rubric I inherited. Those that know me very well know that my first step was to form, yes, you guessed it, a “task force.” Let’s touch on that for a moment – I believe task forces are a great way to build leaders. Our teacher evaluation task force is made up 3:1 of teacher leaders. What better way to get leaders ready than actually “doing” the work of leading? This is teacher engagement at its best! We just started our journey this past week with two days of intense conversations, gap analysis, and action planning around the complex task of teaching in our very different and complex context. This was very important to our beginning to develop what Danielson calls, “Developing a common understanding is critical to accuracy, teaching advancement, and the Framework’s impact on students’ core learning.” In my opening statement to our task force I explained this is a very important journey – we must support our teachers so they can be the best they can be for our students.
We are very fortunate to have partners in this journey. To ensure we get this right, we have become a part of the Indiana Teacher Appraisal and Support System (INTASS) project. The INTASS project offers states, districts, and schools support in designing, implementing, and monitoring their teacher evaluation systems. More importantly, by being part of the project we receive training for our teacher evaluators and support for teachers to engage in evaluation and professional growth opportunities. Here’s what I love about this – note it’s all about the teacher. Another great benefit is we get get to take this journey with two great educational leaders who I greatly respect, Dr. Sandi Cole and Dr. Hardy Murphy. I believe one of the most important points, among many great points, Dr. Cole got our teachers to understand last week was making the mindset shift that teacher evaluation is not something done “to” teachers, but done with teachers to provide professional growth and support for all of our teachers. Dr. Murphy drove home the fact that our performance evaluation system must enable our teachers to effectively carry out the vision and mission of the school.
The INTASS process rests on four basic elements of a quality evaluation plan:
- Clear, frequent, and transparent communication among a wide base of stakeholders
- Professional practice measures that are mutually agreed upon by stakeholders
- Multiple measures of student learning outcomes
- Fully aligned post-evaluation processes, including job-embedded professional growth and support for all educators.
My friend and author of Under New Management, Dr. David Burkus would argue that we need to change from the old systems of evaluation where there is one big formal annual evaluation to a more frequent, less formal process. Our friends at INTASS would agree and so do our teachers. Our teachers on the task force told us loud and clear that they wanted feedback often that was meaningful and actionable. Including teachers’ growth and development in more check-ins would allow administration and staff more time to talk about opportunities – novel idea! Teachers could also examine their current role and their desired career path and then receive advice on the knowledge, skills, and abilities they need to improve in their current role and to move closer to the future they envision for themselves and how that personal vision aligns with the school’s vision and mission. This is a contrast to the rearview-mirror perspective provided by most annual reviews, including our own that I would give an “F,” but we are fixing. These more frequent discussions about the teacher’s growth and development allows all to brainstorm on staff goals and how they align with the school’s strategy. These more frequent observations and conversations help teachers own their career and development plan and feel more empowered to grow. This growth will, in turn, enable effective leading of learning for our students.
The Leadership Journey
Unprecedented levels of complexity and unpredictability are part of our current world, particularly in education. If we are to continue to effectively lead organizations, transform schools, or assist others in creating positive change in their lives, or in the lives of others, we need adaptable and proven tools and practices to utilize now and well into the future. Leadership development, mentoring, and coaching provide the ability to be flexible and relevant no matter the situation and time – in other words adjusting to the current context in real-time. These leadership growth and development opportunities are valuable and effective methods for assisting others in discovering what they need to thrive to be happy, healthy and motivated.
Our Focused Leader Academy (FLA) at Hoosier Academies Network of Schools provides leadership skills the ability that are flexible and relevant no matter the situation and time. We want to inspire with valuable and effective methods for assisting our teacher leaders in discovering what they need to become focused and disciplined leaders. What we are attempting to do is enhance growth of the pre-frontal cortex of the brain, thus increasing the teacher leaders resilience, creativity and belief in self. If we do it right our developing leaders experience making decisions that honor their own values and true potential ultimately living the life they have only imagined. In turn this puts him/her in a position to change the lives of the students we serve.
It was exciting to see a tweet from one our FLA participants, Ann Semon, after session yesterday. She said, “What an inspiring day with @ByronErnest today. Excited for the leadership journey. #HoosierFLA” I’m so glad Ann recognizes this is a journey. Then another tweet from Carlie Coblentz stated, “I’m excited to be going on this educational journey w/ these awesome teachers!” Again, I’m thrilled that Carlie recognizes this as a journey.
I’m pretty pumped we are using John Manning’s (2015) The Disciplined Leader as our book for leadership blogging and guide of our vital few again. As Manning (2015) stated, “Your leadership path is like a present. Whether you chose the path intentionally or ended up on this journey by accident, you are receiving an opportunity that not everyone gets in life. However, with this gift of Disciplined Leadership comes a unique responsibility. We believe that responsibility is to ‘pay it forward,’ helping others grow by sharing your knowledge and wisdom” (Kindle Location 2692). My most rewarding moments, and times when I’ve felt most significant, have been about helping people in a meaningful way, particularly helping grow those I’ve worked alongside. I appreciate John Manning’s partnership in making this journey of creating disciplined leaders possible.
Through our Focused Leader Academy, our teacher leaders are discover powerful leadership competencies, tools, and techniques to assist others in broadening their vision of self. They are learning methods for disbanding limiting beliefs, embracing expanding beliefs, recognizing barriers, stretching potential, shifting behavior, holding people accountable and much more. Our teacher leaders are experiencing rigorous training as well as energizing experiences that are broadening their perspectives and enhancing their creativity while working with fellow employees, peers, students, and families.
Leadership Farm Team Pipeline
Our Graphic by Mike Fleisch from the Leadership Pipeline Content
Could there be any more vital leadership task to a school, organization, or business’s long-term health than the choice and cultivation of its future leaders? I don’t think so! But, while organizations maintain meticulous lists of candidates and create spreadsheets of those who could at a moment’s notice step into the shoes of a key leadership position, an alarming number of newly minted leaders fail spectacularly, ill prepared to do the jobs for which they supposedly have been prepared. Developing a deep and enduring bench strength can only be accomplished by approaching succession planning as more than the mechanical process of updating a spreadsheet. I believe the organizations, including schools that do this best combine two practices: succession planning and leadership development. This creates a long-term process for developing the talent roster across their organizations. You could compare this to a minor league baseball team’s function, including the vital and fundamental goal: getting the right skills in the right place.
Let’s explore this minor league example for a minute, because it is a good one. The major league club’s player development goals must co-exist happily, and profitably I might add, with the local owners and operators of a minor league club. It is also important to note there are also some areas of shared responsibility between the major and minor league teams’ responsibility for player development. The major league team determines which 24 players will be on the minor league team. Again, the major league team makes all the decisions about who comes, goes and gets moved up through the system. Major league clubs keep close watch on their farm teams, sending scouts and front-office staff to watch games and keep stats on players; all of which contributes to the future progression of the players. A pretty intense development pipeline, don’t you think? Here’s the key though: players are developing while, well, playing the game. Novel and intuitive idea, but how many leadership development programs are done by watching PowerPoints? We must treat our leadership pipelines like a minor league baseball program.
Focused Leader Academy Team Illustration From Yesterday’s Discussion
Let’s dive just a little deeper into this minor league pipeline approach. Nearly every baseball player in the MLB started in the minors. Players start low and work their way up the ladder of minor league levels (sometimes skipping a level or two) until they get to the Major Leagues. The rate at which players advance can be vastly different in each case. Each team of the MLB has their own network of minor league teams (sometimes called “farm teams” or “farm leagues”) which are used for player development. Players start low and work their way up the ladder of minor league levels (sometimes skipping a level or two) until they get to the Major Leagues. The point is, these players have very individualized plans (what I call hyper-personalized) to get their skills developed to major league quality. Again, and remember, this is while actually playing the game in a highly competitive market. There have been a handful of players to skip the minors and go straight to the big leagues, but this is very, very rare. Only 2 players in the last 15 years have done it (Mike Leake in 2010 and Xavier Nady in 2000).
Focused Leader Academy Participants Designing & Building A Leadership Pipeline Model
Organizations, especially schools, need to learn from these minor league development “farms” and make sure they are growing their own in real time. We discussed this very point yesterday at our first session of our second cohort of our Focused Leader Academy. As you will recall, last year we started the Focused Leader Academy at the Hoosier Academies Network of Schools. This is an employee development and engagement program. The idea is that great minds and great motives still matter. Teachers with school leadership aspirations have the opportunity to become part of a cohort which will take part in monthly leadership training and be part of supervised leadership projects of the school. Cohort size is at least 15% of teacher leaders per year. The Vision is: Leadership will be born out of those who are affected by it. The Mission is: Leadership will appear anywhere and anytime it is needed. Our Theory of Action is: If we empower our teachers through leadership skill development…Then we will have teacher leaders ready to contribute to the success of Hoosier Academies Network of Schools and be an important part of our talent/leadership pipeline.
We all know that leaders grow leaders. This why I have taken it as my personal charge to develop, grow, and improve our Focused Leader Academy. As Matthew Paese, Audrey Smith, and William Byham stated in their latest book that launches next week, Leaders Ready Now: Accelerating Growth in a Faster World, “Everything you need to accelerate the growth of leadership is already inside your organization(2016, p. v). I am such a believer in this statement. I always say that context matters – and it does. This is why I believe organization’s need to make this work their personal responsibilities, not hire someone else to do it. How in the world could someone else know what the needs are? To do this we must push less-experienced leaders into broader, more formidable assignments. The whole premise behind our Focused Leader Projects. Additionally, I love task forces because these can become, in my opinion, what Paese et al. call Acceleration Pools© (2016). These experiences enable us to get leaders ready with real time development and coaching in the same way the minor league baseball teams do it I described earlier. Task forces and projects also give us the ability to deploy future leaders to key assignments. In fact, we recently lost a person in a key role and instead of filling immediately we put four teacher leaders in the role as what have become affectionately known as BAs (Byron Appointees).
Appointing BAs really turned out to be an incredibly successful move. By conquering difficult assignments, these teacher leaders have become ready to take on bigger leadership roles. I now plan to make BAs a common part of what we do along with our task forces, Focused Leader Academy, and Focused Leader Projects. Paese et al. also taught us, “The challenge is scaling this concept beyond isolated, reactive incidents and creating a repeatable dynamic that causes entire cadres of leaders to become ready” (2016, p. vii). This is why I, as the leader of our network of schools must take responsibility for this.
Finally, for this accelerated growth (Paese, et al., 2016) we must create an environment where our developing leaders experience fear, excitement, anxiety, and experimentation. For rapid growth we must create real time, real work experiences of:
- Fear
- Excitement
- Worry
- Anticipation
- Terror
- Thrill
- Anxiety
- Experimentation
- Risk
- Possibility
These feelings then generate energy and accelerated learning (2016). Are you taking responsibility for your leadership pipeline farm team or leaving it to some off the shelf product or leaving it to some paid organization to do for you? I would suggest to you to take responsibility yourself and get the thrill and inspiration of this important leadership responsibility.
ESSA Opportunity #10: New Community Support for School Successs Grants
ESSA establishes a new grant program that will enable community partners to play an important role in personalized learning environments.
The program supports the following goals:
- Promise Neighborhoods – significantly improve the academic and developmental outcomes of children living in the most distressed communities of the United States by providing access to a community-based continuum of high-quality services. ESSA defines Promise Neighborhoods strategies as “pipeline services” and utilizes this term to refer to “a continuum of coordinated supports, services, and opportunities for children from birth through entry into and success in postsecondary education, and career attainment.” The goal of Promise Neighborhoods to to do the following:
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1) high quality early childhood education programs
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2) high quality school and out of school time programs and strategies
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3) transitions from elementary school to middle school, from middle school to high school, and from high school into and through postsecondary education and into the workforce
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4) family and community engagement and support
- 5) postsecondary and workforce readiness
- 6) community based support for students who are either living in the community or who have attended schools serviced by the pipeline
- 7) social, health, nutrition, and mental health services and supports
- 8) crime prevention and rehabilitation programs for youth.
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- Full Service Community Schools – provide support for schools that improve the coordination and integration, accessibility, and effectiveness of services for children and families, particularly for children attending high-poverty schools.
ESSA Opportunity #9: Modernized 21st Century Community Learning Centers Grant
The 21st Century Community Learning Centers grant program supports academic enrichment activities in after school or extended day settings. This part provides opportunities for communities to establish or expand activities in community learning centers that provide opportunities for academic enrichment, offer students a broad array of additional services, programs and activities, and offers families of students served by community learning centers opportunities for active and meaningful engagement in their child’s education, including opportunities for literacy and related educational development.
Funding is made available for continuation of certain current grants; there are reservations for national activities, and for Bureau of Indian Education schools. There is a local competitive subgrant program. The program is authorized at $1,000,000,000 for FY 2017 and $1,100,000,000 for each of FYs 2018-2020. States should give priority to applicants that will provide high quality credit bearing opportunities outside of the traditional classroom environment. Priority should also go to applicants that will serve students attending schools identified for comprehensive and targeted support and improvement.
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