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| Dedicated to Philadelphia’s Northwest Quality Education Initiative (NQEI), an organization committed to defining quality in Philadelphia’s charter schools and supported by the Philadelphia chapter of BAEO. |
In 2003-2004, roughly 4% of the new schools in the United States were charter schools. This amounts to about 83 schools out of over 2000. In each of these charter schools, leaders and board members are responsible for defining quality. These leaders are responsible for defining quality in different ways than traditional public school leaders. These individuals must lead with vision, must navigate political opposition, and embark on grass roots canvassing, whether to gain new students, guide parents or develop community partnerships. In contrast to traditional leaders, charter school principals oversee finances, guide their board of trustees, create professional development programs and create all sorts of reports to respond to states, authorizers or apply for grants. The work of the charter leader is the work of the 22nd century school leader.
This new leader must begin to articulate new definitions of quality.
As it stands, this new leader must begin to articulate new definitions of quality, definitions that can be delivered to all students, diverse definitions of quality that strive beyond the status quo. As put by some inspired charter school leaders in Philadelphia, these leaders need to be strategic planners, broad-minded thinkers and creative organizers that break out of traditional managerial roles. While we can come up with guidelines for quality schools, the 22nd century school leader will understand that quality or good schools are not quickly or easily defined by discrete characteristics. Rather, their good schools will reflect a culture of quality that infuse discrete characteristics of the school with excellence.
At a recent American Enterprise Institute (AEI) event, Rick Hess presented a paper on principal training in certification programs. While the Hess report dispelled some myths about principal preparation and included a thorough examination of the content of programs across the country, it claimed that principal training was not keeping up with the demands being placed on principals. These demands include entrepreneurial skills related to governance, organizational improvement, accountability and staffing. The principal of the 21st century, Hess and others agreed, would have entrepreneurial skills in addition to being versed in pedagogical matters. This entrepreneurial principal (and the charter school leaders of the future) consistently innovates and pioneers education by exploiting existing research, makes decisions based on sound data, faces weaknesses and vulnerabilities through feedback mechanisms, and consults national experts, in addition to managing school staff, faculty and resources. Like a great teacher, this individual inspires school staff and faculty to push beyond the average, to come up with new, reasoned ideas (not superficial fantasies for improvement), and takes measured risks in order to improve the school. Broadly speaking, the small actions of the 83 new leaders in the 83 new charter schools in 2003-2004, will contribute to improving opportunities for our kids, whether this means original governance design or a singular focus on student achievement and increasing graduation rates.
But how do these new leaders begin to address quality and define quality? How do we define quality in order to fully understand “good school?” We can build schools but we cannot build good schools unless we fully comprehend how “goodness” can be implemented in our locale, with specific populations of kids and families.
I urge school reform advocates, new leaders and current leadership teams to review their idea of a good school. Is this idea based on a checklist of necessities? Is this idea organic and able to change and shift in order to reflect a changing faculty? Does this idea allow for growth? Does this idea allow anyone in the school to change their course of action in order to immediately improve school procedures? Or, does this idea prevent change and responsiveness? Is there no time to reflect on the idea of a good school? These reflections will always be challenging, will never yield quick and easy answers. After all, it is the struggle to define quality and the rarity of quality that makes it valuable.
Consider the moral or “good” person. We do not call someone good if they avoid breaking the law. We do not call someone good if they only follow rules. A good person is someone who goes above and beyond expected behavior. A good person consistently goes above and beyond basic expectations. After all, there are many “good” actions resulting from personal interest and self-centered motive. In order to demonstrate goodness, we must consistently and repeatedly act selflessly, responsibly, with care and compassion for others, even in situations when we are highly tempted to act out of self-interest. Each truly good person we meet becomes a measure of what is possible. Why? Because each of these individuals provides us with a new idea or model of what it means to be good. Part of the wonder associated with meeting self-less individuals is the unique manner in which they bring into existence something we find to be inherently valuable. We can look to certain geniuses of human nature such as Martin Luther King or Gandhi to discover inspiration for becoming good.
A good school must consistently strive to achieve beyond its limitations.
How does this relate to thinking about good, “quality’ schools and quality leaders? A good school must consistently strive to achieve beyond its limitations. There are at least four practices of good schools. As the school opens, therefore, the leadership team must incorporate practices that
By so doing, schools will develop new models of quality and new models of what it means to be a good school, just as every good person we meet inspires and surprises us with the manner in which they express and realize the concept of goodness.
One ability underlies a search for goodness: a moral imagination balanced with sound judgment. No truly good person comes into being from only following prescribed rules. While I can teach my children to treat others as ends in themselves, (rather than using people for personal advantage), they have not become good when they are only obeying my orders. Exclusively following prescribed rules suggests that an individual has not yet come to a full understanding of the principles that underlie these rules. The truly good person must be able to act out of goodness even without the assistance of rules. The truly good person can act out goodness in utterly new situations, with unexpected and new ethical challenges, in situations that have not yet been codified into a series of proper and improper responses. Indeed, our great moral role models in history bring goodness to light even though their actions or words may result in great personal sacrifice and perhaps physical endangerment. In other words, the truly good person has unconditionally committed to a set of values that are presented clearly and distinctly to them by their moral imagination.
the moral imagination presents an idea of a “good school”
Thus, the 22nd century leader would naturally implement the four practices of good schools as she/he draws from their “moral imagination balanced with sound judgment.” In this case, the moral imagination presents an idea of a “good school” that does not yet exist in practice. This is what the imagination does: it presents what is absent. We need leaders who can both theoretically and practically present what is absent in U.S. schools. These leaders must either merge their idealism with other leaders who can bring these ideas into action, or, these leaders must have the additional skill of being able to implement their ideas within somewhat inflexible and obstinate existing systems. In this sense, the quality leader also unconditionally commits to realizing their idea of the good school.
The 22nd century leader has the finesse to communicate this idea to others and inspire them to join into the pursuit of this idea. In many schools, the idea of the “good school” or the moral imagination of the school, will be influenced by all the stakeholders who contribute their ideal. The leader, however, must guide the school according to this idea with sound judgment and compassion. Just as obeying rules does not suffice to make a good person, the quality leader will understand how to use rules as a guide without embracing a rigidity that compromises the good of the whole. This quality leader will also know when to take measured risks that reflect the mission of the school, that strive to create a good school but, at times, ruffles the feathers of stakeholders. Most importantly, this leader will be in new situations, as education changes, as the world changes, and will be able to exercise sound judgment in order to determine proper and improper actions above and beyond any prescribed rules.
Suggested reading:
Frederick Hess and Andrew Kelly, Learning to Lead: In Preparing Principals, Content Matters, http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.22607/pub_detail.asp.
Lisa Petrides and Thad Nodine, Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts, http://www.newschools.org/viewpoints/ideas_at_work.htm.
Dr. Sarah Cunningham currently serves as Director of the Charter School Accreditation Program at the American Academy for Liberal Education. She was the founding Dean at The Oxbow School in Napa, CA and has trained teachers through The Bernstein Center and Vanderbilt's Center for Teaching. She has taught philosophy at Vanderbilt, University of Maine and Belmont University. She regularly presents papers on education and aesthetics at conferences nationwide. Sarah received her BA from Kenyon College and an MA from Vanderbilt University. She recently completed her PhD on the relation between analytic thinking, education and the arts.