Changing Our Thinking
Over the years the hierarchy of education has evolved into an unchanging leadership formula that has managed to survive without adopting change management strategies to meet the changing goals and needs of their customers. As more mandates have been passed to encourage schools and teachers to perform at a higher level, and expectations for student success have increased, we have not seen leadership evolve and grow to meet those demands. The result has been that school systems are attempting to reach 21st century goals using 19th century concepts. The passage of "No Child Left Behind" and the broad "highly qualified" teacher designation has simply highlighted the inability of most school leaders to adapt proactively by aligning their techniques and attitudes with successful business models.
Education is a business. At one time the failure of a school to reach goals was not published, made public or available to anyone with a computer. Now, before families move to a new area they check the numbers on the schools that their children may attend and choose their home based on the location of the school with the highest scores. Students, who must pass competency examinations at virtually every facet of their education in order to move through the system are falling further behind as they are caught between schools trying to increase their own scores and teachers trying to accommodate mandates presented them by leadership to increase school scores.
Over the years the hierarchy of education has evolved into an unchanging leadership formula that has managed to survive without adopting change management strategies to meet the changing goals and needs of their customers. As more mandates have been passed to encourage schools and teachers to perform at a higher level, and expectations for student success have increased, we have not seen leadership evolve and grow to meet those demands. The result has been that school systems are attempting to reach 21st century goals using 19th century concepts. The passage of "No Child Left Behind" and the broad "highly qualified" teacher designation has simply highlighted the inability of most school leaders to adapt proactively by aligning their techniques and attitudes with successful business models.
Education is a business. At one time the failure of a school to reach goals was not published, made public or available to anyone with a computer. Now, before families move to a new area they check the numbers on the schools that their children may attend and choose their home based on the location of the school with the highest scores. Students, who must pass competency examinations at virtually every facet of their education in order to move through the system are falling further behind as they are caught between schools trying to increase their own scores and teachers trying to accommodate mandates presented them by leadership to increase school scores.