Leadership Lessons for the 21st Century: Superintendents' Perspectives

Celebrating 50 years in the educational leadership business, the Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) asked practitioners from around the country, including dozens of Superintendents, to share their leadership lessons. The responses culminated in ten leadership lessons. We invited two former Superintendents, Dr. Clifford B. Janey and Dr. José Torres, to share their reflections of how IEL's leadership lessons connected to their own practice. What they told us is important for all school leaders to know.

IEL Leadership Lesson: Leaders dream of a better world. They ground a shared vision in audacious possibility and practicality.

Janey: When I became Superintendent in the District of Columbia and its State Superintendent, it was clear that a new strategic plan no matter how clear and comprehensive would not be compelling unless there was on-the-ground engagement conversations and commitment from the community to its ideals. The first order of business was to build a plan, "Declaration of Education," followed by "Master Education Plan," which were more than collection of interests from all segments of the community; rather, they were a measureable way to determine what progress was needed and how we can get there.

The call of action was answered by the formulation of the DC Education Compact. The compact involved diverse sectors: fortune five hundred companies, higher education foundations, voters, citizens, political leaders and nonprofit organizations. The Compact was instrumental in creating a public education agenda and sector groups focused on realizing strategic accountable goals in areas such as early childhood education, teaching quality, school leadership, and the social issues that challenge schools and communities. Within three years on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), DC made significant math and reading gains, among the fastest improving in the nation, with nine and thirteen point gains in fourth grade reading for black and Hispanic students respectively.

IEL Leadership Lesson: Leaders recognize that knowing how to lead change is as important as knowing the change one wants to achieve

A missing and often ignored democratic principle in the education reform conversation today is how we create policies to advance the status of students with disabilities and improve the learning environment in which they are taught. When I became Superintendent of Schools in Rochester New York the district faced more than decade old Federal Court decision that students with disabilities were not provided adequate, equal, and timely services for success in school and life. Over time my team and I learned and relearned the primacy of the classroom in the context of how to implement system-wide change. We sought an unprecedented education solution for a well-established legal problem.

Classroom change was by itself not uncommon, but creating 70% of the elementary and 50% of secondary classrooms to include students with disabilities was. Leading change required, whether at the classroom or district level, preconditions. Inclusion became that precondition to advance the teaching and learning of students with disabilities and to close achievement gaps with their peers. Closing the achievement gap by 50% on Regents and higher level courses was in part why the Federal Judge Michael A. Telesca, in his decision to lift the 21 year old court decree, acknowledged "dramatic" and "substantial" progress by the district but in his conclusion stated, "while the school district has shown ample evidence of wholesale, system wide reform in the way it provides special education services to special needs students it has also demonstrated that it has reformed its practices at perhaps the most important level, the classroom."

Leaders embrace and manage tensions that are pervasive in their work and help others do the same. They balance the importance of building strong trusting relationships with demands for accountability and quick action, never overlooking one for the other

Tensions leak into the daily work of leaders and when ignored take on an active networked life of their own. Tension tolerance in urban districts may have some alluring support from the tough talk side of the table, but as a distraction it can become the conversation instead of how to implement the reform agenda. Managing staff tensions while staying mission focused requires an explicit strategy to prevent individual stress from becoming organizational fatigue.

My leadership experience in Boston as a K-8 East Zone (Regional) Superintendent provides a good example. At issue was the district's new student market driven admission policy that carried with it school level accountability for academic performance, teacher quality and ultimately school closures. In the early 1990's it was called Controlled Choice. The theory was competition would bring about quality changes even within the poorest sections of the zone. However, competition didn't mean that all schools were able to compete, rather they had to. Did Control Choice make a difference? Yes it did, if measured by parent satisfaction and confidence in their choice of schools. Over a three year period 80-85% were satisfied.

IEL Leadership Lesson: Leaders are anchored in a commitment to equity and the pursuit of social justice. They mobilize partners and build collective will to ensure opportunities for all children and youth.

There is power in the cultural rhythms of communication. People talk about the schools in their religious institutions, hair salons, barber, diners, bus stops etc. When the district promotes community engagement and people have real access to open communication and know that their questions carry equal weight as those from business and city hall, Superintendents are able to build a portfolio of credible strategies to deal with complex policy issues entwined in personal narratives. For instance, one parent alerted me that the city school district had lowered its standards for athletic participation of students in sports in such a way as to allow a female student to play in regional and state competition with a 1.7 GPA.

In a country that values athletics for the sake of athletics, educational standards can go awry. In Newark, New Jersey our strategy to overcome this tension between sports and education involved a series of town meetings engaging on average four hundred constituents per town meeting. As a result, new policies and higher standards for promotion and graduation were successfully implemented with the support of community ambassadors. This coalition building experience strengthened "trust" relationships within the community and provided the district a unique opportunity to make the best case ever to remove itself from sixteen years of state control.

About Superintendents Interviewed:

Dr. Clifford B. Janey is a Senior Research Scholar at Boston University's School of Education He served as Superintendent of the Newark Public Schools (Newark, NJ), District of Columbia Public Schools (Washington, DC), and Rochester City School District (Rochester, NY).

Dr. José M. Torres is President of the Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy (IMSA) in Aurora, IL. Prior to coming to IMSA, he served as Superintendent of School District U-46 in Elgin, IL (2008-2014).

To learn more about the Institute for Educational Leadership, visit www.iel.org

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